Sharing Hope SC spreading awareness of tissue donation on BRA Day

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — Most people know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but you might not know that Oct. 16 is BRA Day short for Breast Reconstruction Awareness day.

Those at Sharing Hope SC use it as an opportunity to bring attention to the importance of tissue donation for those that have mastectomies. Their employees spent the day learning more about it in a fun, educational way.

Awareness is a big part of BRA Day.

“We’re wanting to highlight tissue donation when it comes to breast reconstruction,” said Michael Palmisano, Director of Tissue Recovery Services at Sharing Hope SC. “That’s something that not many people know about. Only about 23% of women know that this is a possibility for reconstruction.”

It’s a possibility for basically anyone who has to undergo a mastectomy.

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“So all of this goes into place from tissue donation after death,” said Palmisano. “So we do, especially here at we are sharing Hope South Carolina, we do a skin recovery off of the decedent’s back that could then be processed into graft to help with reconstruction of the breast.”

157,000 women undergo breast reconstruction and almost 80,000 choose the skin graft option.

To celebrate how far science has come to help those impacted by breast cancer, these ladies used ribbons and sequins to make bras sparkle.

“If you think about the challenges that females have to go through after losing part of themselves and something that looked natural to them or something that they’ve always grown up with, it’s, it’s part of your identity,” Palmisano said. “And losing part of that and being able to restore that through tissue is considered lifesaving to a lot of people.

The decorating continued while they soaked in other stats and heard stories about how lives have been changed. The tissue grafts are actually pretty universal.

“That means skin recovered for me can actually be transplanted onto you,” said Palmisano. “We don’t have to cross match blood, we don’t have to do any of the things like we do for organ. So there’s a higher possibility of that graft being able to be processed and the transplanted to multiple people.”

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“We think tissue generation is an incredibly important gift,” David DeStefano, President & CEO of Sharing Hope SC, said. “And the gift of tissue can help impact the lives of 75 patients who are out there in need of a graft of some kind. And we think that gift and that outcome is something that’s really worth it for this gift and worth people considering the gift of organ eye tissue donation at the end of life.”

Just one skin donor’s tissues can help more than five women undergoing breast reconstruction surgery.

“We often have an expression here that says that we advocate for people that we don’t know to save the lives of people we’ll never meet,” DeStefano said.

If you are interested in being an organ donor, you can do so at the SC DMV or here.

For more information on Sharing Hope SC, click here.