Mary Anne- Wife of recipient and Tissue Donor
 I dated the love of my life for four years and two days before we were to be married, he ended up in a hospital ER. We got married later that day with our combined children present in his room at St. Mary’s & Elizabeth Hospital, room 319. It was the best wedding ever! Two days later we found out he had PSC (primary sclerosing cholangitis), an auto immune disease, and that Bobby would need a liver transplant. When you are renewing your driver’s license, you never think that YOU or a family member may be the one needing an organ transplant – you automatically assume that you will be the donor! To say our family was shocked is an understatement.After repeated hospital stays, four years later we got “the call” that they had a liver for Bobby, and I can’t tell you the emotions you feel; happy, dread, guilty, and sad. What do you say to each other – do you say the “what if’s” or just pray that everything will go well? Thanks to the selflessness of Bobby’s donor, we got to spend seven more God-given years with him. He got to see his children/step-children graduate, get married and have grandchildren and we got to be with a wonderful, caring man who taught us how precious every single day is. This wonderful man passed away unexpectedly seven years later and being the caring person that he was, we honored his wishes to donate tissue. CELEBRATE each day and don’t take your organs to Heaven; Heaven knows we need them here. xo |
