The hard-hitting message to 'have the chat that saves lives' is the theme of this year's organ and tissue donation week starting Monday.
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To help start the conversation, we're being asked, "If you would say yes to a life saving transplant, have you said yes to becoming an organ and tissue donor?"
More than 1600 people are currently on the national waiting list, and just one organ and tissue donor is able to transform the lives of 10 or more people.
Well-known former Wauchope High student and ballet dancer Kristen Rankin received a life-changing double transplant last July.
Just 12 months later her life has been transformed.
Read her moving story about the life giving gift of organ donation -
"My call was received in July 2014 and within hours I was being prepped for a double organ transplant.
I was finally going to be rid of the life I'd been living for years - no more diabetes, dietary restrictions, daily injections and feeling so unwell I was unable to leave the house or even my bed some days.
Within weeks of my operation I was a new person, my skin, eyes and old personality started to come back.
I'm now 12 months on and enjoying my life thanks to the gift of a stranger - and my family has a mother, wife, daughter, aunty and sister back.
Many people view their heroes as people who are famous, but my hero is someone I will never know.
I can never see them, thank them or know exactly the right way to honour their memory, but I can feel them everyday, as they are a part of me.
That day saved my life and there is not a day that passes that I don't think of my donor and the brave family that followed their wishes to donate organs.
My donor saved over 10 lives that day, including a six-month old baby.
Please, if you haven't had the conversation with your family, do it. Make your wishes clear.
To my beautiful donor and the amazing family that gave me back my life, there has not been a word invented yet that can express the gratitude that we as a family have for you.
My daughter got her mummy back because of you."
Register your organ and tissue donation decision on the Australian Organ Donor Register at www.humanservices.gov.au
