Should You Or Should You Not Donate.......

[Go Hungry]

Definitely going for cremation, and my ashes to be spread in the waters off of Kingston, Jamaica... That way somebody has to take a vacation when I die.

 

[Friday]

ISeriously, though, mummification would be great, because it could contribute to science in the distant future. Now to find someone who would mummify my body... :cautious:

LMAO... In highschool I decided I wanted to be "buried" in a glacier, along with a laminated book all Rosetta-Stone'd up about life today in multiple languages. So that in 10,000 years, when some hikers found me? Otzi!!!

I gradually gave up this plan as I realized all my mountaineering family are 30+ years older than me... and it looked like I wasn't going to die in my early 20's like I'd planned. Hmmph!

<grin> There are , however, a small number of anthropologists & archeologists who are willing to mummify you in the Egyptian fashion with the right waivers signed! :D I got to watch a video of one, in school. Alternatively, whole lotta peat bogs in Ireland. Just need a friend with a Landrover and a dark night :sneaky: Those are some durn cool looking mummies!!! Very Han Solo in Carbonite.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Organ donation so I can save/change a few lives.

Cremation.

Ashes scattered in one of my favorite places.

I have no will, but my family knows that's what I want. GOD knows I talk about it enough!

 

[Kintsugi]

If I were able to be mummified Egyptian style, as @FridayJones suggested, I could probably donate most of my organs beforehand.

Now I'm wondering if I would be okay with donating my brain to science (do they take brains often?) or if it would be better to let anthropologists pull it out my nose like the Egyptians.

 

[Neverthesame]

Yup @FridayJones nailed it about the wonders of decomp. While it lacks in the traditional sense of dignity. It really is quite remarkable how much life is created by one of us silly humans dropping dead.

I have no idea how donation works in New Zealand. Though it may be possible to add a stipulation as part of your living will. That they may only use viable organs for transplant, while leaving the rest of you alone.

I have not the first clue how one goes about arranging this but. If you really want to leave a pretty corpse. (I never thought I would ever use that sentence, ever.) You could be mummified in a similar fashion to Lenin, Chairman Mao and I think there is someone else as well, but it is escaping me right now.

Simply put they have been "pickled" not with vinegar mind you, but using formaldehyde and a few other chemicals. Once a year or so, they soak you in a lovely bath of preservatives that keeps your body "fresh" then a little makeup, new clothes and hairstyle. Then put you in a vacuum sterilised glass casket for people to see you in.

Again, no idea how to have that done, or how much that would cost. (Probably a hell of alot).

For me personally, I couldn't care less. Catholic service, cremation, mummification, immolation, wrapped in a shroud then stuffed into a cave, floated down the Ganges, slapped naked then dumped in the East river, ejected into space, stuffed with as much TNT as me arse will hold then blown to bits.... Ok enough. You get the idea. Lol.

 

[Sighs]

Eva Peron. (Is the other person you are thinking of. - unless you are thinking of another other person... ;))

 

[Fadeaway]

So, I am a bit weird about this. I used to be all for donation. I don't care what happens to my body when I die, toss in the dump for all I care. The problem is I am a bit freaked out by stories I have heard about recipiants taking on their donors personality and having emotional memories. People who hated a certain style of music, will love it after wards if their donor did, stuff like that.

As someone with PTSD would i want to risk passing my emotional memory onto someone else? The fact that it could happen, is enough to dissuade me.

 

[J_trustno1]

Wow, a very good point raised @Fadeaway.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I think that given the fact that MANY people die on the transplant waiting lists, people wouldn't think twice about taking on a few of my traits.

"Who cares, give me the damn organ. I want to live!!!!"

 

[Queen Boudica]

I'd donate everything. If it is going to save a person's life rather than be rotting in the ground or burnt to ashes why on earth wouldn't I choose that option?

Once your dead you are dead, best thing is your organs go to someone who is still living. A child, a mother, a father, anyone it is better than leaving it to rot or burn. Cut me up I don't care. Couldn't be any worse than what goes on in my head. At least I think if I die and my organs go to help others then that is something good.

And you don't just help one person, you help multiple people. Why wouldn't you

 

[NovemberStar]

I'm not sure if you're mean organ donation, or body donation as for scientific purposes?

Part of my Uni study I took biological anthropology. We had weekly classes in the human dissection room at the Uni. Walk into the room and there are a dozen or so body bags laid out on metal tables. I think it was creepier not seeing what was in there. And the smell of formaldehyde was pretty bad.

The bodies are treated with utmost respect. Those who donate their bodies have tags applied to them - some are dissected by the same group of students over the course of 1-2 years, as they study to be doctors. Others have their bodies palatinated and the different parts used for study by other groups - this is what I did in my uni paper there. The body parts last for a year or two, and great care is given and once the parts are 'retired' they will be cremated and returned to family.

Ther was a great documentary on TV about the medical school I am talking about - at the end of the year, there is a special memorial service, where the families (of the person who donated their body to the school) and the students meet. There are speeches a do the students are often bought to tears talking about how much they appreciated the 'gift' of the bodies they got to use to make them great doctors.

There is also a blessing of the room where the cadavers are kept, at the start of each uni semester as well as at the end of the year. As a student, I had the choice to partake no the blessing proper to starting the paper in that room. Which I did, because it did feel a mix of sacred and scary, knowing I was going to be in that room around the bodies .....

It was all done very very respectiuly

Oh - and given the OP is from the same land of the long white cloud - you can be rest assured if you sent your body to Otago Mecical School you'd be very well respected and care shown - as seen in the doco ;)

 

[NovemberStar]

Sorry don't think I'm allowed to post the link here?



Google 'donated to science' and 'culture unplugged' it's online. It's powerful to see the students, at the end of the year they did the dissections , watch the interviews the people who had dontared their bodies to them, did before they died. The students also go to meet the families as well. I'm off to watch it again, hankies nearby. Very humbling that's for sure.

(Don't watch if you are sensitive as it does contain images of deceased bodies, although it's done in a respectful way it's still a bit disturbing if youre like me and if do stuff like that a bit hard to watch)