A Lexington woman is on a mission to raise awareness about organ donation.

Sharon Hayes is among the more than 100,000 Americans on the national Organ transplant waiting list, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Now, she and her husband, a longtime educator in Kentucky, are working to inform the public about the benefits of being a living donor.

More about this story in today's medical news.

It initially started when I found out that I had a birth defect in my pancreas, and so I was constantly having stents put in and taken out for about, 15 years at least.

And so I found a doctor in Louisville that removed my pancreas.

His kind of call was to say, no pancreas, no pain.

And, during that, they take the, cells from your liver or from your pancreas and put them into your liver so that you hopefully will not be a diabetic.

It's called an islet cell transfer clamp.

So that had not worked for me.

I became a type one diabetic immediately moving forward.

I kept having digestion problems, and, I said, you know, I've always wanted to be seen at Mayo Clinic.

They put me with their GI people, and, they said that, my liver was scarred.

And that I would possibly need a liver transplant.

So I was there for an evaluation.

Found out that I had breast cancer.

And so that required a year of chemo and radiation and a surgery which damaged my kidneys or my liver even further.

Mayo has a very high success rate.

It's like 99.1 or something even higher.

You know, it's close to 100%.

And what we're referring to, just to be more clear, is, is a living liver donation, which most people are not, as familiar with.

They open, you know, your system up and remove a portion of your liver and transplant it into the recipient.

So Sharon would get a portion of the donor's, liver.

And both sections of the liver regenerate themselves within about two months.

Most people don't understand that.

Their liver.

It's such an incredible organ.

It regenerates itself and grows back and so that's why we want to make sure people first of all understand there is a shortage in supply.

We need more people to be willing to donate organs.

Most people are familiar with, getting a cadaver, as a liver donation.

And that is a possibility for Sharon.

But, she most likely would not be eligible to get that because of the shortage in supply until she's much sicker.

And this doesn't make any sense to see her getting sicker after everything she's been through.

It's the matter of life and death.

That would improve my quality of life so much, it would mean more time with my children.

More time with Tom.

More time to have a normal life.

You know, I'm.

I'm a lifelong educator.

It's what I've done is my career.

And, I believe people, if they knew of this procedure and how simple it is, there are enough people out there who are willing to to, you know, consider being a transplant, a donor for a transplant.

Obviously, we want Sharon to get, a donor, but if nothing else, if more people become aware of it and consider donation and, you know, help the shortage and supply, it's a positive thing.

According to Donate Life America, 17 people die each day while waiting for an organ transplant.