Gratitude

It’s not that I haven’t asked, not that I haven’t reached out, not that I haven’t wondered. Hey, I’ve wondered for almost nine-and-a-half years. That’s all right, though. That’s just the way it is.  Some things, I’ve come to understand, we’re not supposed to know. We’re just supposed to do.

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I’ll never forget The Call. It came at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday, November 14, 2012, as I lay in my ICU bed at the VCU Medical Center, physically debilitated but far from defeated, fighting off the ravages of a rare autoimmune liver disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis and trying to stay strong, positive, alert, and very much in the moment.

 

Six days earlier, my surgeon, Dr. Robert A. Fisher, had told me that if a donor liver did not become available within a week, I wouldn’t survive.  Crunch time had arrived. I was on the clock. It was game-on. Survive and advance. There’s no tomorrow. There was a time when I thought those hackneyed phrases applied only to sports, but I learned long ago that sports competition is a metaphor for life, and as the seconds ticked away, life was getting as real as it could get.

 

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Are you awake? Dr. Imudia Ehanire, the physician on call, gently asked as she entered my room lit only by the surreal glow of an expansive bank of monitors.

 

Of course, I told her.

 

Is your phone on? she said. You’ll get a call within two minutes.

 

Did they find a liver?! I responded.

 

She said nothing. Her beaming smile spoke volumes.

 

*       *       *       *       *

Some words you hear once and never forget. They’re powerful, stunning, life-altering, seared into your memory forever.  It was Teresa Crenshaw, R.N., my transplant coordinator and guardian angel, who delivered them: Dr. Fisher has approved a liver.

Over the next minute or so, she explained that my donor was an 84-year-old woman from Eastern North Carolina who had suffered a massive stroke in church and had been rushed to the New Hanover Medical Center in Wilmington where she passed away. Despite her age, her liver was deemed pristine. The recovery team led by Dr. Joohyun Kim would leave well before daybreak on a chartered flight from RIC on its mission of mercy. Surgery was scheduled for 10 a.m.

Make your calls, Teresa told me. Let your family know. Then she offered, in so many reassuring words, Leave the rest to us.

The next few hours were a whirlwind. Some moments are lost in the blur. Others I remember as clearly as if they occurred yesterday. Mainly, there was an overwhelming sense of peace. There were no guarantees, however. What would happen would happen. Since my diagnosis almost three years earlier, I’d regarded my disease as a noble adversary that I would battle to the very end. If it beat me across the finish line, so be it, but I always had hope, and now there was tangible hope.

 

*       *       *       *       *

Four days later, I awoke to an exciting new world of possibility and wonder and realized immediately that a miracle had occurred. The road back would be long and arduous, but it would prove enlightening and meaningful as well and provide a voice that would allow me to pay forward the gift by helping fellow travelers and their families navigate their own devious and mysterious transplant journey.

 

*       *       *       *       *

My donor was born in April of 1928. She was a member of the Greatest Generation. She lived through the Great Depression and World War II and no telling what else. She was, I was told, a pillar of her community. She was also a registered organ donor. Somewhere in her consciousness, you see, she understood that advancing age was no match for the extraordinary life she had lived and that her gift – the greatest gift – might possibly be useful to someone whom she would never know but would entrust with its stewardship.

 

How do you say Thank you?  Mere words seem so inadequate and imperfect. Three times, though, I penned heartfelt letters of gratitude to her family. Three times, I heard nothing back. Perhaps there was no family left to respond. Perhaps a response was too painful. And yes, perhaps I’m not supposed to know. Perhaps I’m just supposed to do.

   ~ Weldon Bradshaw