Puck

January 2010 was a big month for our family. Two daughters gave birth to beautiful baby girls, both with jet black hair and I gave birth to this ugly creature I named "Puck" (the doctor said he was as hard as a hockey puck). They had to take Puck by C-section and it took them 12 hours with a follow-up 4 hour surgery. Puck was such a nasty little kid that giving birth left me in ICU for several days and in the hospital for two and a half weeks. You should see the scar the C-section left. It is not this dainty little scar that nobody notices (Tracey won't let me post it). In fact, I think if I were to go to the beach, all the children would run to their mommies screaming. It looks like a shark bit me right in the abdomen.
These are pictures of my actual liver that I received from pathology. I have also posted a picture of a healthy liver that I found on the internet. The difference is amazing. My liver did not have much time left. We had been trying to work through having a live donor donate a portion of their liver to me. They can actually take the right lobe of someone's liver and place it in me. After eight weeks both livers regenerate themselves. We have been through five live donor evaluations through the University of Colorado Hospital in Denver (Tracey, my son, two brothers, and a brother-in-law). For various reasons, they were all denied as donors. More family and friends were in line for evaluation. They will only evaluate one person at a time and it takes about 6 weeks each time. Although live donor was still an option, we do not know how many more live donors we had time for. Plus, it has always been difficult for me to accept the idea of putting a loved one through that surgery (even more so after going through my side of the surgery). Their demonstration of sacrifice and love for me will always bind them to me. Then the Lord intervened and provided a different solution all together. We wonder if He knew something about the need for timing the transplant that we didn't know. Through it all, we have come to know that the Lord is in charge of our lives. We are so thankful for that and would not have it any other way. We have also learned that faith is an action word (you have to actively be trying to find the solution by doing) and that faith precedes the miracle. A miracle happened in our lives. We see it plainly and cannot deny it.
The system is actually biased against people with my liver disease (PSC or Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis). They use a MELD score (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease) to determine who gets the next organ. Three numbers from blood tests are used in the calculation. PSC does not manifest itself in all of the numbers. The liver is actually in worse condition than the MELD score indicates so PSC patients have a hard time moving up the list. But, the bottom line is that there are not enough people donating organs. If everyone that could donate, would donate, there would not be a shortage. Because of these facts, we are fully aware of the miracle that I received a liver before I should have received a liver and we are aware of the role the Rose family played in making that miracle come to pass.
As an organ recipient, I thank everyone who has elected to be an organ donor. It truly makes a difference in real people's lives.