Until now I have never understood the true meaning of “shock” (disturbance, trauma, impact). Now I understand the reason why we weren’t able, on Wednesday night, when they told us, “We don’t know what happened but he’s in a coma», to get hold of them and tell them, “No one goes anywhere until you tell me what happened to Oscar. Nobody goes home because I can’t leave with him»…

On Friday March 31, two days after his cardiorespiratory arrest which they had initially said lasted «just a few minutes» and later reported his brain had been without oxygen for approximately 20 minutes, they informed us about his brain death and the fact that there was nothing they could do.

At that moment we had been holding on to a thread of hope for 48 hours, maintaining composure, a controlled calm, the pain and suffering clenched in our fists. Seeing him there all the time, so beautiful and so helpless, full of tubes and stuff that I would tear off to take him home with me to look after him and spoil him with my massages he liked so much. I would look after him…

We decided with Sandra that we wanted to donate his heart, which was strong, a heart of a healthy athlete. We wanted to give someone the opportunity to continue with their life; It is the only thing that could offer us some serenity in such a difficult moment, that peace that they did not give us, we had to look for somehow. On Friday night they told us that he was the perfect donor and that on Saturday morning the Hospital Clinic team would come to manage the donation.

From the first thing in the morning, the Hospital Clinic treated us with the utmost respect and closeness, having informed us of the process and, as it was a traumatic death in an operating theatre, a judicial autopsy process was opened. It would be the judge who, within approximately one hour, would tell us which organs could be donated according to the report provided by Teknon. At that time (Saturday) Teknon had still not told us why Oscar, who should have returned home on the Wednesday, was in rreversible brain death (3 days).

The donation could save up to 8 people, from children to adults. It could be the heart, the lungs, the liver, the pancreas, the kidneys. Just the thought of that phone call to someone who had been waiting for their child to be saved gave me serenity and peace, that my child’s life would continue through a second chance for other people.

But, 24 hours after we were told that Oscar was brain dead, the information that the judge needed from the hospital had not yet arrived. It was after 7pm on Saturday evening, we wanted to say goodbye to our son as he deserved after «watching over him» for 3 days. Teknon did not offer clear information about what had happened.

Then, exhausted by the lack of humanity, because our son was still breathing and continuing to offer his generosity in death as he did in life, when our strength no longer allowed it and we saw that we would reach yet another day without being able to give peace to our son, we said «the organ donation is cancelled». From that moment on, and without going into details, the management of Teknon informed us of the apparent cause of what had happened, by means of a mobile phone on speaker mode on the
table; they did not think it necessary to attend in person and show the respect that our son’s death deserved.

The first thing I felt from my son, before he was born, was his strong and rapid eartbeat in my tummy. The last thing I heard from my son was that heartbeat. I was hearing how his life was ending. His moment of peace was coming 3 days after he had been taken from us in the most absurd, incredible, inhuman, cold and aseptic way possible. That Saturday night we received the discharge report from the hospital which clearly indicated that he had been in cardiorespiratory arrest for 30 minutes.
The donor’s side goes through the hardest part of this experience but it is also the most comforting as Oscar’s life would be saving other lives; those receiving the call and getting a second chance would have been the most grateful… We deeply regret that the call they received did not culminate in that opportunity, we wish from the bottom of our hearts that it will come to them again.
They say that the worst thing that can happen to you as a parent is to lose a child. It is even worse to be the one to say that your child should be taken off the mechanical ventilation… there are no words.

Now, I only ask you to remember:

«Every day we are offered a new opportunity, to open our eyes is both a privilege and a duty which we
should take advantage of; Oscar no longer can».