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Overall, I was in the hospital for only 9 days. I had some minor issues within the first month, things like infections and some moderate rejection which put me back in the hospital for a very short time. Since the bout of rejection I really haven’t looked back. I spent that summer healing and enjoying life while not having to work. I joked around with my friends and family for the five and a half months I was off from work that everyday was Saturday. It became my statement for the summer of 2005. After the transplant it took a long time for me to rearrange my thinking. I needed to go from thinking that I was sick to thinking that I was healed and after living with the illness for 3 years it took at least a year or so to really get to that point. If you or someone you know has ever gone through a long term illness it alters the way one thinks, not that they stop living, just that they start to think in different terms.

For me, the big thing that I lost during my illness was quality of life. I had forgotten what it was like to live like a normal person. A lot of things in life were put on pause until after the transplant. It’s funny, after the transplant people would ask me if I felt normal again, but it had been so long that I couldn’t remember. If normal is what I feel, today…right now, then normal is good. If you were to pass me on the street, you would have no clue that I had a liver transplant. I can do and eat everything that everyone else can, except grapefruit which is not a huge loss! If you were to look at my blood work then and now, you wouldn’t know I had a transplant because it looks just like everyone else’s…normal. I also find it quite humourous that people ask me how the transplant went and I always reply. “Pretty good…I lived.” Or they will say that they are sorry to hear that…sorry to hear what, that I received a liver? I know what they meant but I like to put a little humour into life…it’s too short not to!

Since the transplant God has continued to do amazing things in my life. I could go on but I really think it is important to end with the transplant because in reality that is the highlight of the story and I don’t want to diminish that in any way. I talked earlier in the story about one thing we all have in common; one thing we all go through is LIFE. Have you ever really thought about life? How about eternity? I also mentioned earlier in the story that when I was in front of the operating room doors I was completely at peace. I don’t know where you are in life, what you’ve done or who you really are, but I want you to know that you too can have this peace. Maybe you are walking through a thunderstorm of life or maybe everything is just great and life is a sunset…but deep down you know something is missing. There was one other thing I didn’t mention in the story just before my surgery as I was sitting in front of the operating room. I talked about the assurance of going to heaven in the story but I also knew that if I were to die there on that operating table that my purpose for being here would have been complete. Let me put it in a different way…I knew that if I survived the transplant and woke up when it was all said and done than I knew that God still had a use for me, there was still a purpose for me to be here. I believe this story is one of those purposes. I also believe this story gives proof that organ donation really does work.

So…how about you?

If you would like to find out some answers for these questions the click on the link below called "I want some answers..." . If not, I do have one more story for you to read. I believe it will encourage you and may put certain things in perspective. Click on "Just one more story..." below to view one last story.

I want some answers...  |  Just one more story...