Hello, Stranger

We were told by my mom's transplant team she would probably never need or be able to get a liver transplant even though she made the list. She may be sick enough to qualify for the list, but she's comparatively too healthy, her blood type is too rare. It's amazing, isn't it, how saying something like that almost guarantees that it will happen?

Wednesday mom got a call from her transplant coordinator, then called me. About 15 minutes later, I was in the car on my way to meet her in Illinois. We got her to St. Louis, to the hospital then the next day she woke up with a new liver after a relatively uncomplicated five-hour surgery. She is getting discharged tomorrow.

I haven't slept a full night in about a week. When I have slept, I've slept in my clothes crunched up on a couch or a chair in the hospital. I've spent hours feeding my mom ice chips, swabbing her mouth with water, learning how to get her to and from the bed and bathroom. My sister has walked her, helped her change her clothes, bullied her and encouraged her and gotten her to follow her nurses' orders and to the breathing exercises that will clear her lungs. The nursing staff at BJC has been patient no matter how many times my mom threatened to call their mothers and has been upbeat and positive no matter what.

And my mom has a new liver. Someone out there was generous enough to give a major organ to a complete stranger so that stranger could live after the donor died. And that stranger happens to be my mom.

My mom was lucky enough to be transplanted while she was still "healthy." Regardless, it'll be a long recovery for her. She's staying with me to recover and I hope while she's here, while we're chafing at each other, while she and my husband snipe each other and she rolls her eyes at my kids and my sister and she argue that we all remember that some wonderful stranger donated something so vital so someone else could live. So thank you, beautiful stranger, wherever you are.