Teen Battling to Survive Writes Book: The Super Power of Positivity

Seventeen-year-old waiting for double organ transplants releases e-book in time for National Minority Donor Awareness Day at Ben Taub General Hospital

WHAT:

Tyler D. Nelson, lung and liver waiting list patient and LifeGift Vital Volunteer, wrote an e-book for children and teens with life- threatening illnesses titled, The Super Power of Positivity and will release it as the donation community marks National Minority Organ Donor Awareness Day at Ben Taub General Hospital.

WHEN:

Monday, Aug. 1, 2011 at 1:30 to 2:30 p.m.

WHERE:

BenTaub General Hospital, 1504 Ben Taub Loop, Houston

WHO:

Tyler Nelson

LifeGift

BenTaub General Hospital

WHY:

Tyler D. Nelson is battling Cystic Fibrosis and dreams of a day where there will be enough organ donors to help children and people like him. Nelson wrote an e-book for children and teens to teach them how to cope and be positive when battling life- threatening illnesses. The book is being released on National Minority Donor Awareness Day during a donor drive at Ben Taub General Hospital. He will be registering people to become donors at the donor drive and educating people on the importance of organ donation, in particular within the minority community.

Ben Taub General Hospital is one of LifeGift’s instrumental partners in donation as a Level 1 trauma center. On average, the hospital has 24 organ donors per year.

QUICK FACTS:

National Minority Donor Awareness Day, celebrated annually on August 1, is a nationwide observance to educate minorities of the desperate need for donation and transplantation within the multicultural community and how to designate their decision to Donate LifeSM. Approximately 55 percent of those on the national organ transplant waiting list are minorities. In 2010, organs transplants were performed on 11,499 minority patients; while there were 2,652 minority deceased donors and 1,997 minority living donors.

In 2010, there were 2,089 Black donors and 5,963 Black organ transplant recipients.
In 2010, there were 1,953 Hispanic donors and 3,795 Hispanic organ transplant recipients.
In 2010, there were 406 Asian donors and 1,308 Asian organ transplant recipients.
More than 111,000 Americans are waiting for a lifesaving transplant
More than 10,000 Texans are on the waiting list.
Nearly 5,000 Texans on the list are Hispanic.
Every day, 18 people die due to the lack of available organs for transplantation.
Thirteen people are added to the waiting list for an organ daily.

This is the 15th annual National Minority Donor Awareness Day.

News media will have the opportunity to learn the following:

· What life is like for Tyler to wait for a lifesaving transplant

· Why Tyler wrote the book

· What can people do to get involved

· How can people register to become donors

# # #

About LifeGift

LifeGift is a not-for-profit organ procurement organization dedicated to recovering organs and tissue for individuals needing transplants in 109 Texas counties in North Texas, Southeast Texas and West Texas. For more information, go to www.lifegift.org or call1-800-633-6562.

About the Harris County Hospital District:

The Harris County Hospital District (hchdonline.com) is the community-owned healthcare system for Harris County, the nation's third most-populous county. The hospital district received the prestigious National Committee for Quality Assurance designation for its network of patient-centered medical homes and has been named among the Best Hospitals in the region by U.S. News & World Report. The Harris County Hospital District is staffed by faculty and residents from nationally ranked medical schools, Baylor College of Medicine and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). For more information, go to www.hchdonline.com or call 713-566-6400