Thursday, December 29, 2016















RECYCLE ME´s ambassador ETZIA at Swedish Melodifestivalen/Eurovision Song Contest 2017. Be aware!
http://www.svt.se/…/bl…/johnny-sanchez-detta-ar-mycket-stort

Photo STINA STJERNKVIST/TT

Friday, December 23, 2016























We wish you all a blessed holiday with this song by our ambassador ETZIA!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEm9wOC4sNY

Be kind, give Love!
 oxoxoxo RECYCLE ME

Friday, December 9, 2016



Make your wishes known by signing up as organ donor, you save lives.

Together we can promote change and encourage each other to take a stand for organ donation. By talking to our loved ones, friends and family, we can all make a contribution.

By signing up as organ donor you can save lives.RECYCLE ME Life, silver jewelry for organ donation, lung, kidney, liver and heart.

The profit from RECYCLE ME jewelry will go to science research about organ donation and transplantation. www.gelinfonden.org


To Purchase jewelry: www.recycleme.life

Photo and Design Pamela Lindgren. All rights reserved © 2016

Thursday, December 8, 2016


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This is ballet dancer Benita Bünger, one of RECYCLE ME´s incredible ambassadors! We had the chance to interview her about her engagement in the RECYCLE ME movement. Read about what inspires and motivates her!

When you're saving someone's life, you will become a part of history. You may not become famous, but you will be in that family's hearts forever. You can do that. How amazing is that? The power we have as humans. It's a choice. And I think everyone should make it.”  - Benita Bünger

- Who are you and where do you live, would you like to say something about your background and family, friends?

I live in Christianshavn, right across the canal and famous Christiania in Denmark. I live here with my boyfriend, our cat Prince and puppy Sherlock. 

-  What inspires you as a person and in your dance profession?

Different things inspire me; my own perception of my own dreams is very important to me, like dreaming about dancing a special part is one thing. But to me it is how you dance it, make it your own, make it art, that's what's inspiring - what you do as an artist with the "cards you are dealt". Very often it is also my curiosity is what brings inspiration for me as a person (and therefore of course also artist). Like instead of thinking how crazy the world is for voting Trump their new president, I think it's interesting to think about what makes people do what they do? What are they waiting for in their lives? What are their dreams and fear, daily worries? Something that must have made them to make the decisions they did, voting in that way. That to me is interesting and can inspire many new thoughts about our life and the world in general. 

-  How would you describe your artwork as a dancer?

It's hard. Physically is one thing, I hate being in pain - mostly because I want to take good care of my body. But mentally is beyond hard, I can hardly describe it. You go through so many ups and downs in your career. Confidence is never promised and the pressure is never off your shoulders. So, I guess you just learn how to deal with it. The crazy thing is, just when you think you find your way around it, something happens. You get so nervous, you may forget to control your muscles and screw up your moment and you are back to where you started. 

- What motivates you as a person and as a dancer?

My idea of my future (little dreams connected hand in hand) motivates me. I may be hard on myself, but I'd rather go down trying than thinking I could have done more. I don't think I could forgive myself. However, having a sense of what's actually realistic is key to being successful and reaching your dreams. I've spend a lot of time running around, not finding my place, trying to save the whole world. You can't. No Yin without Yang. What you can do is spread a whole lot of Yin where ever you go. Smiles, laughs and conversations with directions. Nothing more motivating to me. And then people have a sense of their fortune in life. That's beautiful to me too. It motivates us all. It's just beautiful. 

-  Why do you choose to take part in the RECYCLE ME movement about organ donation?

 As soon as I read about RECYCLE ME I knew I wanted to be a part of this message to the world. I was anxious to buy T-shirts and jewelry to support the concept. You can tell this project is based on kind hearted people, who have gratitude in their souls. I've been an organ donor since I was 18 and I encourage people to do so all the time. I think it's important to share just how easy it is for people to make a difference here in the world. And it's an educational perspective, to see it from the other side. What if it happened to us, wouldn't we beg for someone to help? When you're saving someone's life, you will become a part of history. You may not become famous, but you will be in that family's hearts forever. You can do that. How amazing is that? The power we have as humans. It's a choice. And I think everyone should make it.  

Benita is wearing the BRAVE HEART jewelry for organ donation awareness by designer Pamela Lindgren CEO of RECYCLE ME. If you would like to contribute to the movement, you can do so by purchasing the RECYCLE ME items at www.recycleme.life The profit will go to Professor Lars-Erik Gelin Memorial Foundation for Transplant Research. www.gelinfonden.org

Photo: ThomasPhoto: Thomas Holm Photography. All rights reserved © 2016 Photo: Thomas Holm Photography. All rights reserved © 2016
facebook.com/thomasholmphotography The profits from RECYCLE ME jewellery will go to Professor Lars-Erik Gelin Memorial Foundation for Transplant Research. www.gelinfonden.org

Photo: Thomas Holm Photography. All rights reserved © 2016
facebook.com/thomasholmphotography The profits from RECYCLE ME jewellery will go to Professor Lars-Erik Gelin Memorial Foundation for Transplant Research. www.gelinfonden.org

Photo: Thomas Holm Photography. All rights reserved © 2016
facebook.com/thomasholmphotography The profits from RECYCLE ME jewellery will go to Professor Lars-Erik Gelin Memorial Foundation for Transplant Research. www.gelinfonden.org

Photo: Thomas Holm Photography. All rights reserved © 2016
facebook.com/thomasholmphotography

The profits from RECYCLE ME jewellery will go to Professor Lars-Erik Gelin Memorial Foundation for Transplant Research.
www.gelinfonden.org

Photo: Thomas Holm Photography. All rights reserved © 2016
facebook.com/thomasholmphotography Holm Photography. All rights reserved © 2016
https://www.facebook.com/thomasholmphotography

Thursday, December 1, 2016



WOW! We are super proud and happy to find Msaki, one of RECYCLE ME´s South African ambassadors, on this show, setting the style, wearing the RECYCLE ME Brave Heart jewellery, promoting organ donation awareness! Thank you Msaki, and everyone else that help us promote this important issue!

STYLE: Behind Msaki's outfit! From tomboy to a lady!

More about Msaki’s music here;

Join the RECYCLE ME movement and sign up to be an organ donor!

Friday, November 18, 2016


This is music artist ETZIA, one of RECYCLE ME´s amazing ambassadors! We had the chance to meet her and interview her about her engagement in the RECYCLE ME movement. Read about her, what inspires and motivates her!

- Who are you and where do you live, would you like to say something about your background and family, friends?

My name is Erica, I'm 31 years old, I'm born in New York and have Westindian heritage.

Now I'm based in Sweden, living with my daughter and fiancé. My friends are my extended family, most of them in the music industry.  

-  What inspires you as a person and in your music?

Life inspires me, waking up to a new day, walking the streets of Gothenburg, looking out over the harbor, participating in cultural things, listening to my friends and other peoples’ stories. I also love Art Deco and sci-Fi.

-  How would you describe your music?

My music stems in reggae and dancehall but has a Western flavor to it, giving it new character. 

- What motivates you as a person and as a musician?

Understanding myself and learning to let go of control motivates me to continue doing music.

-  Why do you choose to take part in the RECYCLE ME movement about organ donation?

We have come of an age where our technique is so developed, instead of building nuclear and other weapons I think we should proceed to educate us in saving lives and learning more about the human body. 

- You are now one of the ambassadors for the RECYCLE ME movement, can you describe, tell us something about this?

As an ambassador I hope to be a spokesperson for the voices in need, so when they're lying on the operation table they know there is a chance they will be saved.

- You recently performed in Gothenburg, Sweden at the Culture Festival “Kulturkalaset”, can you tell us something about this event?


The event was a kick-off for us Swedes and South Africans. Combining music and arts is a tool we will continue to use to express the importance of rescuing lives and staying humble to humanity.  

- Is there something you would like to change like anything in the cause of organ donation or other movement, topics, anything the sky’s no limit?

I wish for people to be more conscious of how we choose to spend our days on this planet, to prioritize right so that the future can be worth longing for.


Many thanks to photographer Gustavo and team for great photos and participating for the cause- Organ Donation Concerns Us All!

Photo Gustavo Perillo Nogueira.
All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2016

Thursday, November 3, 2016



Creative X is one of the official partners with Swedish based RECYCLE ME. Recycle me is a non-profit driven design proposal to benefit human organ donation. The idea of the proposal is t-shirts prints and jewellery in the shape of human organs. By wearing a t-shirt or jewellery people will make a pro-donation statement.
Using various art disciplines to discuss/encourage organ donation, our collaboration will see some exciting collaborations happening between Sweden and South Africa.

-We are so happy for our partnership!! Thank you Creative X!! Together we can make a difference. RECYCLE ME

Wednesday, October 26, 2016



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We got exciting news this month! The RECYCLE ME project got recognition for our efforts to raise organ donation awareness through culture and design. Together we make a difference, organ donation includes us all.

Livet som gåva (Life as a gift) is an independent collaboration between different patient organisations and medical profession in Sweden that works for organ donation awareness. Read their motivation below.

Pamela Lindgren, this year’s Honorary Member of Livet som Gåva (Life as a Gift)

Pamela Lindgren has been elected as the Honorary Member for 2016 of Livet som Gåva (Life as a Gift). The decision was taken by Livet som Gåva’s Executive Committee after all the nominations had been compiled and considered together. Pamela Lindgren is a designer and postgraduate student at the Chalmers University of Technology. For the past ten years, she has been profoundly committed to the task of getting more people to take a stand for organ and tissue donation, despite not having any vested interest in this issue.

Pamela Lindgren has designed silver jewellery and glass objects in the form of some of the organs that are possible to transplant. She has also initiated various activities with the aim of promoting organ donation. Her latest initiative took place during the Gothenburg Culture Festival in August this year. Research is one of the interests dearest to Pamela’s heart, and the profits from RECYCLE ME sales are donated continually to the Foundation to the Memory of Professor Lars-Erik Gelin (Stiftelsen Professor Lars-Erik Gelins Minnesfond (www.gelinfonden.org) ) for transplantation research.

Pamela Lindgren’s project RECYCLE ME is well-known not only in Sweden but also in many other countries. Currently Pamela has started a cultural exchange between RECYCLE ME and a group of interested stakeholders in South Africa.  

The motivation for the Honorary Award in 2016 is as follows:

”Through design and culture, Pamela Lindgren with her project RECYCLE ME has contributed to increasing understanding for organ and tissue donation.”

The Honorary Award was presented to Pamela Lindgren by the Foundation to the Memory of Professor Lars-Erik Gelin on the occasion of the Gelin Symposium on the 7th October 2016 in Gothenburg.  The Diploma and a glass ship designed by Bertil Vallien were presented to Pamela Lindgren by Håkan Gäbel, the first person to receive the Award in 2003.


See more about RECYCLE ME on http://recycleme.life

For Livet som Gåva (Life as a Gift)

Håkan Hedman

Chairperson of Livet som Gåva

Box 1386

172 27  SUNDBYBERG

 

Translated with great help from Margaret Myers, RECYCLE ME

 

Monday, October 10, 2016

























This Jenny, heart recipient May 2014. Her story is touching and amazing, read it below.

On the Waiting List
My name’s Jenny, I’m 41 years old and waiting for a new heart. I live with my husband Johan and our two children Gustaf, 12 and Saga, 10. I enjoy cooking and having friends around. My husband and I met at a dance 16 years ago. Last year we attended a West Coast Swing course together, and it was great fun. We usually travel around with our caravan in the summer. I also enjoy skiing and every year we spend time at a ski resort with our family. I studied for five years up in Luleå and am now a chemical engineer. My first job was working on control technology at the Preem Refinery in Lysekil. Nowadays I work at a chemical industry only 5 minutes from home. It produces solvents and plasticisers. 

My heart history started in the summer of 2010. I went to the doctor in March that year complaining about shortage of breath when I was out walking. The doctor thought I’d got asthma from overexertion. I was given large doses of asthma medicines and my own PEF meter. However, the doctor didn’t do a spirometry test, he listened to my heart but didn’t take my blood pressure at all either. I went on holiday to Greece and then travelled to Shanghai for my work. When I was at the airport in China I thought that the air there was very bad, so I had to stop several times to take my asthma spray. At the end of June, my boss thought that I should contact a new doctor, so I went to the clinic the same day. The doctor at the clinic didn’t believe it could be anything other than asthma. I asked if it could be anything else – lung cancer? He said: ”It could be something to do with your lungs, if it doesn’t get any better, we can x-ray your lungs later.”  The doctor gave me a blood test and it didn’t show any infection. My blood pressure was however not checked.

On Saturday the 10th of July 2010 we celebrated that our neighbour had succeeded in completing a half-triathlon, and then my husband went out to the pub with a workmate. I had started coughing a lot and when I lay down I coughed even more. I was up all night since I couldn’t lie down.  I drank lots of honey and lemon to cure my tickly cough. Johan came home at about 4 a.m. and we sat and chatted for a while in the kitchen, then he went up to bed. I thought that I’d have to go to A&E in the morning, and that I’d wake the neighbour at 7 a.m. so we could drive there. I wasn’t worried, but the cough just would not stop.  I was waiting for the neighbour to knock at our door when suddenly I found I was coughing up water!!! 

We got into the car and drove off, with me coughing and suddenly feeling extremely panicky, that this was something very serious … I started coughing up pink froth into a plastic bag. I begged Malin to ring for an ambulance! I told her what to say: that it was my breathing ... the SOS nurse wanted her to stop the car. Malin asked where the ambulance was coming from. It turned out to be from Kungälv, about 15 minutes away on the motorway. 

”OK”, said Malin, ”then we’ll meet you halfway to Kungälv.”
”No”, said the nurse. ”Stop the car!!”
”No”, said Malin. ”See you halfway.”

When we arrived at the Kode exit, the ambulance had not yet arrived. It came two minutes later, the longest two minutes of my life. I felt unable to keep upright, I hung on the door still coughing up pink froth. 

Then the ambulance was there, and I managed to say my personal registration number and they gave me a CPAP mask. Unfortunately, the ambulance man didn’t explain that he knew what I was suffering from, just that the CPAP mask helps to treat water on the lungs ... 

I believed it was just oxygen … 

I heard the sirens start to wail and then I lost consciousness. 

I have been told that when I arrived in A&E at Kungälv Hospital I suffered a circulatory stop, and that several nurses and doctors struggled with CPR to save my life. 

The doctors tried all Sunday to find out what was wrong with me, so I probably wasn’t their idea of what a heart patient looked like. When they x-rayed my lungs they started to suspect that I had an enlarged heart. They did an ultrasound and were able to see that I had severe heart failure. Kungälv contacted Thorax at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, but the helicopter was busy elsewhere so I was rushed by ambulance in a respirator to Sahlgrenska. I remember that I woke up at one point in Thorax and thought it was so odd that mum and my younger sister, Johanna, were standing at my bedside. Then I understood how seriously ill I was. 

The day after I was taken off the respirator and moved to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (ward 93). Dr Thomas Giljam told me that I had heart failure (idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy) which meant that I would always have to take heart medicines and that I might have to undergo a heart transplant in the future, or else that my heart might recover. Three days later I once again had lung oedema. It happened very suddenly and I had to move into an intensive care room again in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. I was given treatment involving a CPAP mask and Furix, as well as masses of Valium, since I was so anxious. I asked Stefan the nurse: 

”Am I going to die?” He wrote on the piece of paper: ”No”. 

Today I am so grateful to Stefan for daring to write ”No”! 

If I had died that night, it wouldn’t have mattered that he had been wrong. But it is essential to keep hopeful to have the power to keep fighting for one’s life!

Dr ”Dino” wanted to see how my heart would react to stress. He ordered an Echo Stress Test which means cycling while having an ultrasound performed. The doctor then saw how my mitral valve started to leak a lot when I made an effort. I felt pressure at the base of my throat, which I’d tried to describe to my own doctor during the spring, and I now think it was the regurgitation to my lungs I was feeling! 

I was given intravenous medication and my heart recovered very well.

After only three months, I started to job-train for 25% of fulltime. After one year I was back at 100% as factory manager again. My job was very stressful and my doctor thought that I should consider changing jobs and I knew that the stress wasn’t good for me. In all other ways, I was very careful, going to a physiotherapist and training several times a week at a level that I felt I could cope with. I’d started dancing Swedish Bugg (Lindy Hopp) again, and swimming once a week. In the autumn of 2012 the pressure on my chest returned. I explained to my doctor that the regurgitation in the mitral valve had started again. My doctor in Kungälv took up my case at a Thorax conference, and an operation of my mitral valve was planned. 

I got worse during the spring and summer of 2013. The summer heat didn’t help and my lung oedema returned. I had to go by ambulance to Kungälv A&E and later on to Sahlgrenska. I underwent a semi-emergency mitral valve operation. The Thorax surgeons later told me that when they opened up my chest they were able to see just how damaged my heart was. They fixed the valve with a ring and that went well, but my heart didn’t want to recover. My kidneys collapsed and I had to have dialysis. A balloon pump helped my heart to keep pumping. My body was swollen and filled with water. They were unable to stitch my chest together again. Instead I had to lie open for a week after the operation. I slept for four weeks. They spent one and a half weeks trying to wake me up, but I wouldn’t … 

After five weeks my intravenous medication was completed and I was moved to the cardiac ward. I came home again at the end of August after one and a half months in hospital. During the autumn, I struggled to keep up with physiotherapy, though I felt it was very uphill, however it was hard to know whether it was my heart or my muscles! 

Two months later, I began to realise that I wasn’t getting any stronger. Physiotherapy continued to be hard work and I had to stop and rest several times on my way upstairs in our house. I got tired just eating. I was admitted to Sahlgrenska again and that was when they started a heart transplant investigation.  I actively joined the transplantation list on 1 November 2013. I was given another round of Simdax intravenously and I got much better.  I was able to go home again, though unfortunately not for long. On 22 November I had to be admitted again. Now they started planning a pump operation and on 3 December a BiVAD pump (Berlin Heart) was operated into my chest. I then spent two and a half months in hospital after which I was allowed to go home to my family on 20 February.

Since I have to have someone with me twenty-four hours a day, my husband, children and I have moved to stay with my parents temporarily, and it’s a good solution.  On 7 March, I again actively joined the transplantation list. I’m getting stronger by the day with the BiVAD pump and I’m trying to train and build up my body again for the big operation. Now I’m just waiting for the phone call with that message … that they’ve found a heart that is suitable for me. 
Blood group 0 and just the right size! 

Jenny Karsberg, Kode in Western Sweden, 25 April 2014


After My Transplantation 
The phone call I was waiting for came one afternoon in May. The transplantation coordinator told me that they had found a heart that would suit me, there was no special hurry, but they wanted me to be at the hospital in about two and a half hours. 

I had to give a lot of blood samples and shower a couple of times, as well as I could considering the external parts of the pump. Then the nurse said: ”Now you can rest for a while”, and she told me that the operation would take place at about 4 a.m., and the time was now 11.30 p.m. WHAT? Sleep now? Can I take a sleeping pill? No. How am I supposed to sleep in that case?  I was allowed to take a mild sedative. I tried to rest and think good thoughts, but to fall asleep was hard.  
In the middle of the night on the way to Thorax, I hugged my husband and said: 

”Kiss and hug, see you later.”

Luckily, there were many well-known faces waiting for me in Thorax. I didn’t feel at all anxious, knowing I was in good hands. 

The surgeon told me afterwards that it took about two hours to remove all the tubes that had been stitched into my heart, because they had really grown into the tissues, as of course they were supposed to do. I was rolled back to the Thorax intensive care ward at 3 p.m. which meant that the transplantation had taken about eleven hours. Then I spent one week in Thorax where the course of events was quite normal, with the help of a drainage catheter, heart medication intravenously and medicines to get my kidneys started again. The first period was rather confused, when one is in a kind of borderland between dreaming and being awake.

”I saw bedbugs all over the place”, ”I said such odd things”, ”I thought I was being kidnapped by space creatures”.  
After one week in Thorax intensive care I was allowed to move to the transplantation ward. Now my digestive system started well and truly working again and I had to run to the toilet many times because the new medicines gave me diarrhoeia.  I had a new roommate who had got new lungs, and it was good to be able to talk about one’s experiences with somebody who had been through more or less the same process.

My husband was allowed to take me home on midsummer day, and what a wonderful feeling it was to come back home, without the pump, and I was able to go for a walk without getting out of breath. I even coped with the summer heat without feeling tired out and getting oedema.

One and a half years have passed since then, and things have been up and down but mostly up! Adjusting my immune system has been difficult, and once it was so low that I had to be admitted to hospital and carefully monitored. After about nine months I got a CMV infection, which means my heart showed CMV positive, but I was one of the 30% who had not had CMV as a child. I started working 25% of fulltime again after nine months. Now, after one and a half years, I’ve just started working 75% of fulltime. I’ve also started to train spinning and next weekend we’re going to the mountains to do some slalom skiing! 

Next summer I intend to take part in the European Heart Lung Transplant Championship 2016 in Finland, twenty kilometres on an ordinary bicycle!

I am so thankful for the incredibly fine healthcare I was given at Sahlgrenska. 

And I’m so grateful that I was able to survive Christmas 2013, thanks to my excellent Berlin Heart Pump! 

Jenny Karsberg, Ödsmål in Sweden, 7 December 2015


Epilogue;
Last summer I attended a big sports event where all the participants had gone through heart and/or lung transplantations. We competed in athletics, jogging, swimming and ball sports. I competed in the 20 km cycle race on country roads. I managed it! What a fantastic feeling. I rode my new bike and it took me one hour and seven minutes. I came first in my class, women aged 35-44. Next time, when the sports event is going to be held in Italy, I aim to cycle the same race in under 57 minutes.
Jenny Karsberg, Sweden, 6 October 2016

Photo by Jessica Nilsson 

Translated by Margaret Myers for RECYCLE ME 

Monday, September 12, 2016




 
Thank you again to everyone who visited our tent at Kulturkalaset/Culture Festival! Results from the quiz are here! Out of all quiz participants, only four had all seven answers correct.
 
Congratulations to Samuel who had also the closest answer to the tiebreaker question; 2819, there was actually 2294 kidney beans in the jar! Samuel choose the t-shirt as his prize. Below in comments soon you can find the questions with the correct answers. Thanks everyone for caring and sharing! Because organ donation concerns us all!

If you would like to support organ donation you can purchase the t-shirt here; http://shop.pamelalindgren.com/…/grp/my-heart-is-your-heart…

The profit from the RECYCLE ME collection goes to the Gelin foundation; http://gelinfonden.org/in-english/

Thursday, September 1, 2016

ETZIA-the woman with the big heart!

ETZIA with band Hot This Year- Thanks so much for joining us and Gothenburg at kulturkalaset 2016, you and the other people volunteering made this a great event for promoting organ donation.

Because organ donation concerns us all, open your heart and let everyone know you have taken a stand for organ donation!

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

















  


  
RECYCLE ME for Organ Donation at Kulturkalaset / Culture Festival Gothenburg together we do do MORE!


















Thanks everyone who came by our tent on Saturday, so nice to meet you all! 

RECYCLE ME for Organ Donation at Kulturkalaset / Culture Festival Gothenburg together with;

Petra Vestlund, transplantation coordinator at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. Susanne Ljungman, Renal specialist and renal failure coordinator Ellinor Broms. Jenny Nyström, professor and kidney researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg. Gelinfonden, The foundation’s main assignment is to support vital research on organ transplantationer. Håkan Hedman, Honorary Doctor at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg and Chairman of the Swedish Kidney Association. Håkan Gäbel is a senior lecturer and former transplantation surgeon. Markus Gäbel, transplantation surgeon at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. Pamela Lindgren, founder, project leader and designer of RECYCLE ME, Master of Fine Art and PhD student at Chalmers University of Technology. Tina Pajunen, active in the Swedish Kidney Association. Fredrik Holm, music producer Definition Baroque. Lelethu Mahambehlala, “Poeticsoul”, poet from Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa. Asanda Msaki Mvana, musician from Buffalo City , South Africa. ETZIA, musician from Gothenburg Sweden. Rushay Booysen, artist and  hip hop manager from Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa. The 4 Blind Mice, artistic collective from Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa.

A big thank you to our volunteers!!