As my illness progressed my weakness became more and more pronounced. Also my legs and abdomen became swollen from retaining fluid. This fluid was probably poisoning me. Itching all over my body became unbearable at times and I lost most of my appatite. Eventually it became extremely hard for me to stay at work all day. I was placed on the Liver transplant list in November of 2003. When I would go to the hospital so they could monitor my meld score I would see people at all stages of the transplant process. People were there who had been on the list for five years and still waiting. Also I would see people who were as little at ten days post op. As my meld score continued to rise I was moved further up towards the top of the list.

On August fourth 2004 I told my boss I did not think I would be able to work anymore. It had reached the point where I was about ready to just lay down and stay there. A couple of days after that my wife found me in the bedroom. She said she observed me putting a paper bag on my foot. When she asked me what I was doing I told her I was looking for my other shoe because I was going to take a walk. She had asked the people at the hospital how she would know if something bad was happening to me and they had told her she would know when it happened. Well, she figured something bad was happening. Apparently my ammonia level was way out of whack. She got me to the hospital, a hundred miles away(that is a whole lot of kilometers) and they found I had a urinary tract infection. They kept me in the hospital for two days and stuffed me full of antibiotics and released me on Wednesday. We were supposed to return to the hospital on Friday so they could observe my condition to see if it had improved. Thursday night my wife got her minivan ready to take me to the hospital and during the process left the interior lights on. Around two AM on Friday August twelfth 2005 I got up to use the restroom and my pager went off. While I was fumbling around trying to focus on the number the phone rang. When I answered I said,"Yeah, are you trying to call me?" The person on the other end said yes we are. Can you come to the hospital ? We have a liver for you. Of course I thought it was a joke since I had only been on the list ten months. They assured me it was no joke and that I needed to hurry.

So, I proceeded to wake my wife up and we threw everything in her van and discovered the battery was dead. She began to complain about how much she hated to drive my pickup truck and I said don't worry I am driving!!! Remember it is a hundred miles from my house to the hospital . When we got to the closest town I flagged down a policeman and asked could he escort me and he said no. I asked him how fast could I go and he said not much over seventy miles an hour. Well I am pretty sure I exceeded that for a good bit of the way but managed to arrive safely at the hospital in less than two hours. One of the doctors on my transplant team was waiting at the door to the emergency room when I arrived at the hospital. He asked me if I was ready for what was about to take place. This caused me some confusion and I asked, "what do you mean?" He stated well there is a lot of trauma involved and did I feel up to it physically? I proceeded to do a few jumping jacks just to assure him that I felt physically able to undertake the operation. Also I informed him I could probably do a few push ups if felt it necessary. At that point he must have thought what we need to do is get this fellow under some form of sedation. The last thing I recall before going into surgery was trying to get my teeth out. A few months before this they decided I needed to have all my teeth extracted due to some type of gum disease. When I left my house I had put a lot of glue in my mouth because I did not wan them to fall out on the way to the hospital. Usually during the course of the day the glue loses it's strength. Since it had only been in a couple of hours they were very hard to get out.

When I came to in recovery I did not know who I was or where I was or how I got there. There were television speakers in the rail of the hospital bed and I could hear the the voice of a man telling about a patient in a hospital who had died because he was unable to get the attention of his attendants. Naturally I assumed they were telling a story about me and I must be dead. My feet were tied as were my arms and I had stuff crammed down my throat and was unable to talk. My head would turn to the right and I could see three people outside my room through the glass door but no matter how hard I struggled I could not get their attention. The next thing I knew I heard someone calling my name and telling me to get out of bed because I had my new liver. Two women were on my left and a man was on my right. The man said, " wow I think this dude want s to tell us something. Let's pull the tube."
The first thing I asked was "is there a television in this room " and they said yes. I asked them please to turn it off. When they wanted to know why I told them and they said I must me mistaken because no show like that had been on. Well, to say the least it made me angry that they did not believe me but I got over it.

While I had been trying to get the attention of my attendants I had pulled the needle of an IV out of my vein in my left arm. It was feeding me some kind of medicine . It continued to put the medicine under the skin in my arm. This caused my arm to swell and it was not discovered until my wrist started bleeding from the swelling under my hospital band. Other than that everything went pretty well. My release came after only eight days. Recovery was quicker than I imagined. After four and a half months, On January 3,2005 I returned to my old job as a maintenance mechanic at the dam.

Today I am still working. Since I came back I have been called upon to do all the things I did before the surgery. My abilities have been affected only that I do things a little slower. Everyone seems to think that my age of fifty-five may have something to do with that. Really I don't know. What I do know is that I am a very blessed person. Anyone who is waiting for a transplant should look forward to it with a minimum of fear. If you outcome is like mine, the amount of discomfort is far outweighed by the end result. The biggest problem I have today is trying to figure out why I have been given this miracle. There must be a reason. Thanks for reading my story and I hope the outcome to your story is as good as mine.-Frank