Help Me Thank My Skin Donor

I can’t stop thinking about the man who helped save my life.

On October 31, 2015 I was in a freak accident. I was severely burned from the waist down and in a coma in the Burn ICU at Syracuse Upstate Hospital. The surgeon used cadaver skin to cover my legs which allowed my vascular system to heal and regenerate allowing me the best possible outcome for my graft surgeries.

It did. And my grafts have healed amazingly well.

I can’t stop thinking about him.

I know he was a biker. I’m guessing he died shortly before my accident. I don’t know how long cadaver skin’s shelf life lasts. I’m assuming he died near to Syracuse in a motorcycle accident. From the amount of donor skin they had I am assuming he was a large man. I have been told that the skin bore tattoos and that his tattoos wrapped around my legs for a while. They saved me.

His skin bought me time. Time enough to harvest my own to replace what the fire took from me. And I don’t know his name.

More than anything, I want to say thank you.

If he was your family, your husband, your father, your ex, your beloved friend, and you are open to speaking to someone whose life he saved in his death, I want to say thank you. And if nothing else, I want you to know that something more came of his life after his death, if there can be comfort in that for you.

I can’t stop thinking about the man who helped save my life. And what a gift he left behind. Or how his life touched mine without our ever meeting. I will not take it for granted.