It appears at first that Gaea Shaw, author of the recent release, “Dying to Live,” is very much like any other woman her age. She goes on prom dress hunts with her daughter, teaches her how to drive and has a witty sense of humor. What is not so casual, however, is that these daily practices would not have been possible if not for a heart transplant eight years ago.

On Oct. 26, 1997, Shaw found out she had an inherited heart disease called cardiomyopathy. Her state was only curable through a heart transplant, a procedure extremely risky and rare due to the low number of organ donors. According to Shaw, she was saved from being one of the approximately 17 patients that die every day due to the unavailability of an organ.

“I’m happy to be here,” Shaw said to an audience in Building 200. “Saying that takes on a new sense of meaning when you’ve been at the brink of death.”

Since her second chance at life, Shaw has reached out in many ways to share her private story and increase awareness about organ and tissue donation. Last night’s event is only one of many ways Shaw has endeavored to spread her message. Only nine months after her transplant, she competed in her first U.S. Transplant Games and won gold medals for swimming. The Transplant Games are Olympic-fashioned competitions for organ transplant recipients. To this day, she has competed in four U.S. and three World Transplant Games total, amassing a dozen gold, one bronze and seven silver medals for swimming. She also authored “Dying to Live,” a personal memoir of her journey before, during and after the transplant.

Her book differentiates itself from other organ donation accounts because Shaw had the opportunity to meet both her donor’s family and the nurse who cared for her 15-year-old donor, Christopher Kuhlman, who died in a car accident. Her union with the Kuhlmans was an extreme rarity, as receiver and donor information is kept strictly confidential. According to Shaw, only when both parties happen to write to the Organ Procurement Organization expressing their willingness to meet the other is such an event possible.

“It was very magnificently intense, it was very loving,” Shaw said of the reunion. “There was a tremendous connection between us.”

Shaw also recalled an emotional moment when Mrs. Kuhlman, tears streaming down her face, called Shaw’s name, asking if she could listen to her son’s heart beat.

Organ Donation Education, the University organization that put together the event, is piloted by a group of passionate undergraduates devoted to raising awareness about the importance of organ and tissue donation.

“Our goal is not to convince people to donate organs but to educate people about the possibility in it, to make people talk about it,” said senior Terrell Stevenson, president of Organ Donation Education. “And there are a lot of myths out there — mainly the myth that if you sign up to be an organ donor, doctors will not try their hardest at critical states.”

Stevenson expressed her disbelief at how many people had asked her about such myths and hoped that organizations like hers would clarify such doubts.

According to junior Kenneth Shaw, one of the special events co-chairs who spearheaded the presentation, such speaker talks are only one of the many ways the organization attempts to spread the word.

“We also have other programs like high school teaching and organ transplant shadowing,” Shaw said. He summed up his experience working with organ donation issues as “learning about your own potential.”

“You realize how much of an impact you have on other people’s lives,” he said.

It is precisely because of that impact that Gaea Shaw is living her life to the fullest potential. She encourages those who have not yet signed their organ donor cards to do so.

“I want them to consider if life circumstances suddenly changed and they were in need of an organ, where that organ would come from,” she said. According to Shaw, there are 90,000 patients on the waitlist for organs even today.

Shaw continued, calling her experience not a transplant but a transformation.

“I worry less, I’m more grateful, I feel more peace, I’ve learned how to reach out for support and accept it when it comes my way,” she said. “Those are things I didn’t know I was going to get — I thought I was getting a heart.”

Toward the end of her talk, Shaw repeatedly underscored the importance of learning gratitude — in the sense of both giving and receiving. She lamented that today’s independent culture makes it easy to give but very hard to ask for help. However, she encouraged all of the listeners not to be afraid of happily and thankfully accepting support when needed. Her life is a testament to how such debts can be repaid.

“The Kuhlmans have lost someone they loved, but that person they loved has become a hero,” she said. “My whole life is a thank you, an expression of gratitude. I give thanks and blessings to Christopher’s family every day.”

It was such notions of interactive gratitude that especially touched Pinyi Ko, a freshman in the audience.

“There seems to be a general lack of gratitude and thank for life in general these days, and it was really nice to come and see this happen,” Ko said. Despite admitting that she didn’t personally know anyone with an organ transplant, she still left the talk deeply moved.

“I’m kind of left speechless right now,” Ko said.