An after Memorial Day salute

I don’t have a name for it yet, and it would be just among us transplant folks, but it’s sort of a reverse of Memorial Day. A salute to the thousands of men and women on the transplant teams across the country – not because they gave their lives, but because they saved others. Maybe we’d plant flowers instead of placing wreaths or bouquets at gravesites.

In my case, I’d be planting roses for a list longer than both of my arms. Very green! And, as I suspect the case is with most of us, there would be one special rose. I’d take care with a unique Orange Rose for Dr. Maher Baz, the head of the transplant team at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida. He's the physician who made the decision to move ahead with my bilateral lung transplant despite what could be a major complication. And the man to whom I owe this new life.

If anyone has an idea for what we should call this new celebration, I’d be delighted to hear it.

As an afterthought, which is what this blog is all about, I should note that I can not imagine giving the decision Dr. Baz made to a bureaucrat in some centralized health care system. If that were the case, chances are, I wouldn't be imagining anything. I wouldn't be.