Priceless Gifts

I didn’t seek primary sclerosing cholangitis, the nasty autoimmune liver disease that did its best to take me out back in 2012, but it certainly sought me, and it sought me with a vengeance. Strange as this might seem, I’m glad it did, because the experience provided many incredible gifts that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

 

The first gift was the challenge. There’s no cure for PSC. Best case scenario, it progresses slowly, and you outlive it. Worst case, you become so ill that you need a transplant. Very worst case, no donor liver is available.

        

From the moment of diagnosis in early 2010, I chose to deal with life positively and proactively. I would trust my medical team. I would rely on my strength and faith. I would not allow myself to suffer. I would win the mind game. My mantra became, “Tomorrow will be better.” I vowed to compete as hard as I had as a runner and as a coach, and I would never, ever give up.

 

When the challenges intensified, I promised four generations of my family that I’d do everything within my power to survive, even vowing to dance one day at my granddaughter’s wedding. Grace is her name, by the way. She was six years old at the time.

        

Another gift was the crisis of the fall of 2012.

 

After a week in the hospital and nine days at home, I entered the ICU on November 6. I determined that I would make this my golden moment. I said to myself just what I’d said to runners for years: Run the first part of the race with your head and the last part with your heart. Respect the weather, the terrain, and your opponent, but never fear them. No excuses. Just compete. Run through the finish. Always run through the finish.

        

Two days later, when my doctor stood at the foot of my bed and told me that without a transplant I had a week at best, my competitive instincts kicked in even more. I told him and everyone else, “I will not die in this hospital.” As the week went on and my prognosis became more ominous, I altered my message: “Liver disease might beat me across the finish line, but no way will it ever beat me.”  The medical folks thought I was delirious, but I knew exactly what I meant, and I meant every single word.

 

That intense, emotional, and spiritual week brought more incredible gifts by challenging me to think in ways I’d never thought before. The specter of death isn’t scary. Fighting with every fiber of my being and being at peace are in no way contradictory. Odds are simply numbers. There’s always hope. Even in the darkness, there’s always a candle glowing in the distance. I never lost sight of that candle.

 

The call came at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday, the sixth day, my 41^st day on the transplant list. There would have been no 42^nd day. My donor was an 84-year-old stroke victim from Wilmington, NC. My doctors described her liver as “pristine.” Another gift! What a gift!

        

The aftermath has brought even more gifts.

 

The challenge of rebuilding my strength and stamina from square one was a gift. It wasn’t easy. It took what seemed forever. It tested my patience but never my resolve. There were fits and starts and setbacks, but every step of the odyssey has been, and continues to be, worthwhile and meaningful.

 

There’ve been plenty of other gifts, of course: perspective, enlightenment, insight, empathy, and love heaped upon my family. Preaching the gospel of perseverance and hope has been a gift whether it’s through the written or spoken word or whether it reaches a large audience or a single fellow traveler, far from home, bedridden, overwhelmed, frightened, and in distress.

 

Today marks four years.

Four incredible years.

Years filled with gifts.

Amazing gifts.

Humbling gifts.

Priceless gifts.

                  -- Weldon Bradshaw