transplant success

Last week, we got the news that Carl -- my friend Dawn's husband -- had been placed on the liver transplant list. He'd been having chronic health issues since he was a child, and things were getting worse. Dawn was excited that he might soon find relief, but was also understandably concerned about the major surgery that lay ahead.

I'd heard stories about patients languishing on transplant lists for years before donor organs became available, some patients who died waiting. So I was surprised to hear that the call came in early Tuesday morning letting Carl and Dawn know that a donor liver was available. Carl spent the day at the hospital undergoing more tests to determine whether he was healthy enough for the transplant surgery, which was scheduled for last night.

A little more than twenty-four hours after that call came in, Carl has a new liver and is resting in the ICU. It's amazing to think about, and Carl's family has much to be grateful for this morning. Yet there's another family out there who has lost someone: the organ donor. Using a word like "bittersweet" to describe this experience seems trite and almost insultingly superficial. And this morning's "Here and Now" program on public radio was exploring medical ethics and the possibility that a California transplant team had hastened the death of a brain-dead organ donor in order to harvest the needed organs.

There is some comfort in the knowledge that something good can come out of death -- that it can mean new life for someone else. Carl and Dawn understand the significance of this gift they've been given, and we're all praying for his full recovery, and a full new life.