I was in station 53 after my transplant, having received the 397th liver transplant Mayo had performed, Soon I was given a roommate…. My dear friend Dean! He and I had gone to breakfast the Friday before my call… and we both resigned ourselves to just be patient and leave it to God to decide. The day I was released from the hospital, I was feeling rather full of myself, and headed down to the subway… I walked a mile that day. Of course I had to take a long long nap when I got back to the GOL Transplant house!
I was told when I went through my evaluation, I would be in the hospital for 21-26 days, and needed to stay in the Rochester area for 2 months. I broke a record, and was released 10 days after surgery, and was released to go home as long as I broke up the 6 hour drive into 2 days. I went back to my sisters, and celebrated with them, and the next morning I was on my way HOME! A month and 4 days after surgery, I was home! 
I had to return to Mayo for a possible rejection episode, when they discovered I had strictures. They placed a T-tube in my left lobe from both the chest, and rib cage, and I had those for many months. After they were removed, I never had issues again.
When I would go back for my check ups, I would stay at the Clinic View Inn, which is no longer called that…I would bring my wife and kids and we would make a family mini vacation out if it so I could spend time with my family rather than going through it alone again. We cherished these trips, even though I spent a lot of time in exam rooms.
Little by little the tests became less and less. I finally started going on my own and was able to visit a dear friend I had made, who was the housekeeper at the Clinic View Inn. She and I became friends after as I returned from a day of testing, she said “Hi” and I asked how she was doing… she replied “do you really want to know?” And at that moment I had to decide if I really meant it, or was it just something to say in passing… I sat down, and said “as a matter of fact I do”… we’ve been friends ever since!
Many things have changed since I was transplanted. When I was evaluated, the criteria for transplant in livers was A) blood type B) body size, and C) time on the waiting list. The MELD score had not yet been discovered/invented. I was put at the top of the list for blood type A+ and much to my dismay at the time, got bumped 3 times… twice by the same person. That person was a man named Fred, whom I had made good friends with because it was as if God had said “he needs someone to understand and talk with” and we were both blood type A!
We called ourselves the A team… He had a rough time of it. He was still hospitalized when I got my transplant. I would go to his room, dragging my IV pole and read to him, rub out his leg cramps, and just carry on conversation so he wouldn’t feel so alone. He ended up needing a second transplant because he developed a clot in the portal vein. That was why I was bumped twice by the same person….
On the Tuesday that followed my transplant, a mere 2 days post transplant, I attended the support group that Mayo held for the patients at Station 53. Jaws dropped, eyes opened wide…I had just received my gift of life!
I had signed up for every study they put in front of me. One of them was for a dosage study for a new drug then known as FK506, now known as Prograf, or tacrolimus. In the blind study I evidently drew the high dose, starting out at 30mg a day. I now take 1mg a day for reference.
I am proud to say that I did what I did for those who followed the path I chose, not for myself. Anyone who is now on that drug has many people to thank for agreeing to partake in that study, and I am proud to one of them.
Life since transplant hasn’t always been easy, but never tough enough to make me regret my decision. I’ve had my fair share of infections, a few near deaths, a stroke, and 11 major surgeries since transplant, but none of them related to the transplant itself.
I have experience near death several times due to sepsis infections from recurring cellulitis, but again that’s not transplant related.
Since transplant I went back to driving a truck for a living, loading and unloading my own truck with materials that were often double my own weight, and having to get them on the truck under my own power. I spent 10 years as a Scoutmaster for 2 different Boy Scout Troops, served on the district level, and got to see both my older sons become Eagle Scouts. 
In 2009 my wife and I traveled to Russia to adopt a sibling group of 2 girls and a boy, and in the blink of an eye, I had 5 children! 
Now I have a daughter in law, a son in law, and 4 grandchildren.

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