To donate or not to donate, that is the question.

When deciding to be an organ and tissue donor, it's a question everyone needs to discuss with their families.

"What we hear from most people who don't consent is that they don't know what their family member's wishes were," says Susan Mau Larson, public relations manager for LifeSource, a non-profit organ procurement organization.

Larson said LifeSource is "designated by the federal government to manage the organ donation process in the region, which consists of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and three counties in Wisconsin. After someone dies, a staff member goes to the hospital to talk to the families about whether or not they want to donate their loved one's organs, and, if they want to oversee the allocation of the organs and manage the surgical recovery of the organs."

Organs are allocated depending on the length of time a person has been waiting for a transplant, the severity of a person's illness, whether an available organ is the proper size and blood type and how close a donor is to a possible recipient. Larson said the organization, United Network for Organ Sharing, maintains a list of those statistics and LifeSource works with them when organs in the region become available.

The condition of the donated organs also is taken into consideration. "At the time of death, we assess the health and viability of the donor … the only time someone can't be a donor is if they are HIV positive. Age isn't a restriction, though," Larson says. "We've had donors into their '80s and even newborns can be donors. Sadly, we have infants waiting for hearts, livers and lungs, but because of their size they need an organ from another infant."

Organs and tissues that can be donated include the kidneys, pancreas, liver, heart, lungs, corneas, intestines, bone, heart valves, connective tissue and skin. One person's organs can be donated to eight people, and their tissues can be used to help as many as 40 people.

Larson said, last year 148 people in the Upper Midwest donated organs to 504 people. However, there are still people in need of transplants.

Currently, she said, 80,000 people in the country are waiting for organ transplants, including more than 2,000 in the region. "The consent rate is usually 50 to 60 percent and Minnesota is on the higher end of that. We're closer to 60 percent and we're proud of that. We're still not meeting the need, though."

To help educate people about organ donation and increase that percentage, Leah Bailey, of Albert Lea, has been volunteering for LifeSource since her mother died in 1994 of a brain aneurysm.

Fortunately for Bailey and her family, her mother often told her children she wanted her organs donated when she died. "We had talked about it prior to her getting sick … it seemed that whenever it came up on TV, we would talk about it as a family," Bailey says. "It was something she really encouraged because she wanted to help somebody if she could."

Bailey says she and her family still needed information about organ donation when her mother died and LifeSource was willing to provide them with the facts. "They were real willing to talk about it and they cleared up any misinformation we had and gave us information about what we did not know."

Bailey says her family donated her mother's heart, pancreas, kidneys, corneas, intestines and tissue. She has kept tabs on the recipients of her mother's organs and though she doesn't know their names, she knows their ages, where they live and what their conditions are.

"In 1994, a 74-year-old woman received one of my mother's kidneys and she's still alive and doing well. A 56-year-old man received her heart, but he only lived for six or nine more months. There were rejection issues and he was very, very ill," Bailey said. "People ask me how I feel about that and if I think I made the wrong decision. I don't because I feel he had an extra six or nine months to spend with his family and who knows what milestones he was able to see in that time."

Bailey's mother's other kidney and pancreas were given to a 38-year-old woman in Ohio who "was a life-long diabetic and was weeks away from having to go on dialysis. Now she's doing just outstanding."

The intestines were donated for medical research and her mother's skin was given to the American Red Cross which uses it to make skin grafts for people with third degree burns.

"The donated skin acts as temporary protection to get them past the first few weeks of intense pain and high chance of infection," Bailey explains. "It only lasts four to six months until the body starts to reject it, but that's usually long enough to get them past that critical stage."

Organ donation is still a personal choice. Often, people decide not to become organ donors because of a lack of knowledge about organ donation, religious beliefs and superstitions, a distrust of the medical community and a fear that by signing an organ donor card, medical personnel would not work as hard to save them.

Bailey suggests people who aren't sure if they want to be organ donors should "get the facts and then make a decision. You can always change your mind, but make sure your family knows what that decision is because they make the ultimate decision."

If you decide you want to be a donor, Larson says you can "sign a donor card and put on your license that you want to be an organ donor.

The most important thing is to talk to your family. The first two are important, but not necessary. If you do indicate that you want to be an organ donor on your license, though, that can help you start a conversation with your family about it.

For more information about organ donation, call LifeSource at 1-888-5-DONATE or visit their Web site at www.life-source.org.