Funeral home offers discount to organ donors

TWIN FALLS - Mike Parke was prepared to die in 2008. Then he was handed a lifeline in the form of a brand-new liver. And one transplant surgery later, Parke, 42, is feeling the best he has in years. The surgery swapped in a new organ for his original liver, which was shrunken and crippled by a genetic disease. But now Parke also has a new perspective on life. And he's made it his mission to encourage everyone to sign up with the Idaho Donor Registry.

TWIN FALLS - Mike Parke was prepared to die in 2008.

Then he was handed a lifeline in the form of a brand-new liver. And one transplant surgery later, Parke, 42, is feeling the best he has in years.

The surgery swapped in a new organ for his original liver, which was shrunken and crippled by a genetic disease. But now Parke also has a new perspective on life. And he's made it his mission to encourage everyone to sign up with the Idaho Donor Registry.

The owner of Parke's Magic Valley Funeral Home in Twin Falls said Thursday that he plans to start a foundation to help cover the many medical costs for transplant patients. Parke will offer a $1,800 discount on funeral services to families of people who donate organs, and plans to talk to area service groups and anyone else who's interested about the value of donating a liver, kidney, heart or other organs.

He's timed his announcement with National Donate Life Month, a nationwide push to encourage donations. And he's transformed, he said, from someone who wasn't very supportive of donations into a passionate advocate still astonished by the gift he received.

"Somebody died for that," he said. "Somebody died so I could live."

Though Idahoans seem to participate fairly well in the state registry, officials say more donors are always needed.

Dixie Madsen with Intermountain Donor Services, the Utah-based group that coordinates Idaho's list, said about 65 percent of the state's licensed drivers choose to register as donors on their licenses. Though it's hard to be sure how many Idahoans are waiting for transplants, she said, they likely number 300 to 400 statewide.

More than 106,000 people are currently waiting for organs nationwide; on average, 18 of them die every day while they wait.

Many people see the value in registering, Madsen said, but others sometimes need a little push. A donor or recipient sharing a personal experience can help.

"All of a sudden it puts a face and a name to this broad concept," she said.

That's what Parke hopes to do with his story. His liver was destroyed by a disease called hemochromatosis, in which the body absorbs more iron than it can process and the rest is left to build up in a person's bloodstream. But more than a year after his surgery, he once again owns the funeral home he was forced to sell off. Despite a couple serious health scares, Parke is doing well.

Before, Parke said, he thought poorly of donations because it makes it harder to prepare a person's body for a funeral. But he makes it a point now to thank every donor who comes through the doors of his home.

Recipients are encouraged to write thank-you letters, but even he has struggled ever since his surgery to properly express his thoughts, he said. He plans to finally drop off his letter Monday at a transplant patient conference in Murray, Utah.

Planning ahead can help families avoid the kind of last-minute decision that Lacy Mason of Murtaugh faced last year. Her infant son, Kruz, was born with brain problems and lived less than a month before passing away in March 2009.

Mason and her husband without hesitation answered "yes" when a doctor asked about donating Kruz's heart valves, and the extraction was actually performed at Parke's home, she said. Though she lost her baby, she said, the couple still felt they could save someone else's.

Mason marked herself as a donor on her driver's license and said the choice is an easy one for her.

"There's no reason not to, if you can save someone else," she said.