People, usually my workmates, tell me I’m stupid or crazy and say they could never do it, especially the morning drive home after working all night.

I guess it’s the price one has to pay for wanting to work night duty and wanting the peace and quiet as well as the solitude and safety, (not to mention the relatively pollution free environment) of a country lifestyle.

So another night begins. I drive down the quiet country road. My eyes feel a little gritty and heavy as I would expect on this fourth consecutive night of my six night stint. I laugh at the gags of the tworadio bods who entertain me on my nightly trip.

I arrive, park and ascend the stairs to the theatre change room. I pass the intensive care waiting room. There are people wall to wall, or ‘distressed relatives’ as we call them. I only glance at them as I pass by, as to look at their faces would reveal their pain, hurt and tearful suffering.

As I change, a thought flicks through my mind regarding the young woman I know is in intensive care – a car accident victim. She is 21. ‘Organ donor’, I think to myself and then I focus back on the people I’ve just walked past. It all adds up. This is all confirmed when I walk in to the reception desk. Yes, it’s booked for 3am.

I escape up the corridor to the tea room for a cup of coffee and my 10 minute ‘psyche’ time as I call it. My mind ticks over, my feelings surface – such mixed feelings, such complex, complicated feelings.

My workmate arrives. She is a mother, a very family orientated person and a deeply religious soul.

We chat about daily happenings, like how much sleep we managed to get, which is one of the things night staff often mention. Then we discuss the pending case. Time is on our side. At least we’ll be able to get all the regular routine work completed first. Luckily the phone doesn’t ring so we achieve our goal. Before sitting down for a final talk and a cuppa we get out the protocol book and set up for the case, instruments and all sterile supplies and equipment are collected.

Then we sit, we have a light snack, we talk. We both know each other’s feelings and beliefs about organ donation.

She knows I want to donate my organs if anything ever happens to me. It is something I feel strongly about. Is it the caring nurse coming out in me, or the humanitarian? Or just a right from wrong feeling? Or could it even be the thought that I would live on in another human body?

I am relatively young. I do not have any chronic health problems and am not a drinker or smoker so I pride myself on the fact that, excluding any trauma at the time of death, my organs should be in good condition.

We head for the desk in plenty of time. The transplant co-ordinator and one of the surgeons arrive. The co-ordinator is our source of information and we admire him immensely. He is such a wonderful, gifted, understanding human being. He inspires us by recounting some recent success stories. We talk of our beliefs, he listens and respects our opinions.

As the saying goes, it never rains but it pours. The phone rings, we have another urgent case which will have to be done first. Another phone call, there may be a caesarean section at 5.30am. Action stations.

We set up for the emergency. I scrub up and set out the sterile instruments – the phone rings again and the case is cancelled as the patient didn’t survive the resuscitation.

So I pack up, scrub again, and set up the sterile instruments and equipment for the donor. By now the remainder of the first team of surgeons has arrived. We introduce ourselves. They check my trolley and are quite satisfied with the instrumentation, but ask for a few other pieces of equipment.

The patient has arrived, as has the anaesthetist. As I wait for the team to scrub, I do the count and then look into the theatre and see her. She looks young, her head is heavily bandaged as is one of her arms. There is an array of intravenous flasks, tubing and monitors with flashing lights, beeps and alarms around the head of the table.

The anaesthetist and the anaesthetic nurse are busy with drugs, sorting out lines and charts. Among all this activity lies this young human being who is clinically brain dead and has been so since 4.30pm the previous afternoon. But the monitors still show a heartbeat, she is still warm and pink and her chest rises and falls with the sound of the ventilator.

The teams come out with arms dripping. I gown and glove them. We begin. The light is turned on, her body is exposed, skin is prepared with an alcoholic solution, sterile drapes go on. I position my trolleys and connect suction and diathermy and I hand up the scalpel.

Everything is organised by our wonderful co-ordinator and a nurse from a major city hospital. She is on the mobile phone to the hospital throughout the procedure reporting our progress. Every time I look around there seem to be more people in the theatre.

We perform the full exposure of the organs to be taken, then another team arrives with two surgeons and a scrub nurse. We step back, they move in. In a short time they remove the heart, it is checked, packed in plastic bags and ice and put into an Esky. It is smaller than they expected so the nurse phones her hospital. The patient waiting for her heart is sent home and the stand bypatient is to be prepared for the transplant. I imagine the acute disappointment and frustration o fone family and the relief and anticipation of another. The heart team leaves.

We move back in and remove the liver, then the kidneys and lastly the pancreas. While one surgeon checks the organs and packs them in ice, the other closes the wound. I do the final count and pack up my instruments and finally the dressing is applied. The drapes are removed.

They all thank us for our help and leave with their Eskies after meeting another transplant deadline. Their job is only half done and so their day begins after spending one third of the night with us.

Now for the tough part of this case. All the clinical stuff is over and now we are confronted by what is left of this young life. We wash her, we unbandage, wash and redress her injured arm. I hold her hand and look at the ring on her swollen Finger. I look at her face, her hair sucking out of the large head bandage. Her mouth and her teeth show. I imagine her laughing, talking. I think of her family who left before she came to theatre, her boyfriend who was driving the vehicle and wasuninjured. I talk to her in my mind while I do all this.

Tears build up in my eyes and I sniff. My understanding workmate looks at me. She asks if I am alright and puts her arm around me.

I want to place my head on her shoulder and put my arms around her and let it all out, but then we'd both be in a mess. It's not the right time and there won't be a right time because later we'll say goodbye and go home. I think she thinks I'm rejecting her as I pull away and get on with the job at hand. I hope she understands. We finish cleaning up the young woman. The shroud is  put on and her name is attached. We call for the orderlies to collect her.

I wash my instruments and we clean up the theatre after she has gone. It is past knock off time so we get our things and leave. We say goodbye in the car park as I knew we would. I drive the long road home physically and mentally exhausted. I eat several pieces of fruit on the way my keep awake tonic.

I arrive home to a quiet, empty house. My ray of sunshine is the two loving dogs who meet me with squeals of joy, wagging tails and dirty paws. I pick up the smallest of the two. I hug her tightly and feel her heart beating against my chest and her breath on my face. I whisper my sorrow in her ear and she licks a tear from my cheek. She understands my mood.

I turn my face up to the sky and feel the warmth of the sun. I think of these gifts of life given by such a young person, with such unselfishness. Such pain and sorrow, but the gifts will live on and give someone a second chance, maybe for many years. During her 21 years, this one young person came into contact with thousands of people and now her life will affect possibly hundreds more people unknown to her but treasured, loved and never forgotten a new beginning.