hmmm...how to start this blog

1. I've wondered for many years how the events of the last 18 hours would play out.

2. How do you thank someone for choosing to selflessly give life to another during a time of what must be intense grief for the giver of that gift?

3. I'm sitting in the ICU with my firstborn, who has more tubes, wires, and monitors than I've ever seen going in and coming out of one person.

4. Stu called last night and said the transplant team called to tell him a liver was available.

Any of the above would be a suitable beginning to this post, which I will try to keep brief.

The transplant team became aware of a donor liver last night around 8:00, when it was apparently almost too late to use the liver, and because Stu was a match and because he lives close enough to the hospital to get here in time for the transplant, he moved to the top of the list.

Jack and I met Stu and Shi at the ER around 8:30 and were immediately sent to the 10th floor where his pre-op preparations began. At around 10:00, his surgeon performed the procedure to obtain the donor liver in a hospital about 50 miles from here, travelled with the liver to this hospital, and then began Stu's transplant at 3:45 am.

After nearly six hours of surgery, his surgeon came out and told us the surgery had gone very well. She said the liver was beautiful, it fit perfectly, and Stu had come through without needing even one transfusion of blood, which is not the normal liver transplant. His surgery took less than six hours rather than the usual 8-9 hours because he is thin and young and healthy (except for the failing liver), and she expects his recovery to be smooth and quick and he will likely go home in less than a week.

I cannot begin to imagine the emotions today of the family who so generously donated, and I cannot express the way it feels to once again see my son with healthy pink skin and clear whites in his eyes after less than 12 hours with a healthy liver in his belly.

Somehow, this long-dreaded event has come and passed and continues.