The Story of a Man

So this week at work was the one that all of us didn't want to believe would happen, thought might happen, but didn't actually think would happen! A young man who could be anybody's son, father, brother, husband, or friend... he died Monday after a battle, a war with his own body. Through no fault of his own, he developed an occult disease he didn't know he had until his eyes turned yellow. After spending the last ten months of his life away from southern California, where his Lakers played a championship series, where wildfires threatened the homes of people he knew, where politics from Iowa to New Hampshire to his home state have carried on since January 3, life for everyone around him has gone on. He missed spring, summer and the beautiful beginning of fall. He couldn't eat buffalo wings with a beer at the beginning of football season, and he won't see the Dodgers play in the playoffs.
With his never-ending advocate of a mother at his bedside, this young man faced the darkest times a person can face. Sickness, hope, life, sickness, near death, hope, life again, and again, and again until last week when it all came to an end for him. You see, one new organ sometimes isn't enough for some people. We've transplanted people more than once before and it's like starting over each time. There isn't a "limit" per se, and when you are invested in something or someone, you fight for it or him or her. You can't give up because of a shortage of livers, there's always been and always will be a shortage. If we let that hold us back, no one would ever have the chances that so many of our other near-death to life patients have had. One man got to go home to Alabama to see his first granddaughter who was born in July while he was here for treatment. One young man received half a liver from his wife's salon co-worker's husband. One woman took too many hepatotoxic herbal (non-FDA-approved) preparations and lost two weeks of time being unconcious in the ICU, to wake up to two teenage daughters who want to go to nursing school after seeing the death-to-life care their mother received. There is hope out there. And you can pass it forward.
So, on 10-2, we'll miss him. It's too bad we all got to know him as well as we did. We got to know his mother and watched her shed tears of hope and elation and grief. We gave her hugs after he died. We got to know his godmother, girlfriend, and about his father. He's one of those patients you hear about, you read about, that papers are written about, and one of the one's the nurses who had the chance to take care of him will never forget. He gave us the chance to learn and get better at what we do; he forced our patience, understanding, and skill. I hope his story makes up your mind about the importance of donating your organs when you're done with them. It's the greatest hope out there for young men like him and his mom, even if for just another month.