Liver Transplant Changes Life
“I had a choice, but not really. My doctor had just given me the news I had dreaded since the test a week before. I only had months to live. My choices were to try to qualify to get on a liver transplant list or face dying. I chose to try for the list. When you are faced with such reality, you somehow grab whatever chance you have,” says Richard Elkins, Jasper County resident who received a liver transplant last year.
Each year thousands of people are also given a chance to give life to the sick and dying when they are getting their driver’s license renewed. It is a simple question with a simple answer. Do you want to be an organ donor?
Richard Elkins will never know who signed that donor card and gave him life again, but he is living proof that being a organ donor is a life giver.
According to current U. S. data figures, there are over 124,000 people on the waiting list for organs, last year nearly 25,000 organ transplants were performed and there are only 11,883 donors on their list. One donor is capable of helping up to 60 people. On an average, someone is added to the list every ten minutes and every day 21 people die who are waiting for a organ.
Five hospitals in Georgia are designated as transplant centers, Children’ s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston Hospital, Emory University Hospital, Georgia Health Services in Augusta, Piedmont and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta.
Richard received his new liver at Emory last year. Sixteen years ago Richard learned that he had a condition known as “fatty liver,” and admits he did not follow the advice of his doctor to change his life style and diet. “Last year, I had pain in my side for four days that did not go away and tests showed a spot on my liver,” remembers Elkins. This was the start of months of testing, biopsy, and finding out the spot was cancer followed up by surgery.
The tumor surgery was not successful and he learned he was doomed without a transplant. Qualifying for the transplant took agonizing months as Elkins and his wife of 30 years, Bobbie, did everything in their power to get him on the transplant list.
“There were days when we held hands and prayed earnestly for a miracle,” says Bobbie.
One day they got the call that a liver was own its way and they rushed to Emory Hospital. The operation took over seven hours and hospital recovery was ten days. The couple took up residence at the Mason House near Emory for two and a half weeks so Richard could have frequent blood tests. After only seven weeks, he was pronounced ready to resume life with only monthly testing. “It has now been nine months since my surgery and I am thankful to be alive every day,” Richard says.
“The last thing I did before my surgery was to kiss Bobbie goodbye for maybe the last time, but then I opened my eyes in recovery and saw her standing there. She was the most welcome sight in this world,” Richard admits. He has been given additional time to enjoy his six children, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren and “I love every extra minute of my life now.”
To learn more about donating and to sign up to be a donor simply go to www.optn.transplant.hrsa.gov. or the Georgia Department of Motor Vehicles website, www.dmv.org.
You should also update information on yourself through the DMV website.
As Richard Elkins will tell you, “You never know how good life can be until it is being taken from you.”
