A Trial of Patience.

A Trial of Patience Christopher Lewis It seemed like after two weeks, my “flu” symptoms should have resolved. I was not eating, could not hold anything down, and had no energy. It was easy enough for my pediatrician at the time to attribute this to a common virus. This was not sitting well with my parents, however. My mother decided to take me to the emergency room and get me evaluated there. The doctors there assessed me and sent me back home with a medication to help with the nausea. Later that evening, my mom gave me that medication, and it caused a seizure. She called 911, and I was brought by ambulance to the hospital. After an extensive workup, it was determined I was in liver failure related to an aneurysm in my hepatic artery. I was going to require a liver transplant if I were to live. I had to be transferred to another hospital in New York from the hospital near our home in Connecticut. I do not remember any of the details leading up to this after the seizure. I do not remember being told I needed a liver transplant and I do not remember going into surgery. My memories of these events start after the surgery. What I remember is being in the pediatric ICU and being told my mother was able to donate part of her liver to me. I had quite a lengthy recovery after this point. I spent about two months in the hospital and then went to a rehab facility where I would have to learn how to walk again and regain my strength. By the time I was discharged from the rehab facility, I had missed the last half of my 5th-grade year. By the time I was able to return to school, it was already several months into 6th grade. Slowly but surely, life was returning to normal. I was able to get back to doing the things an eleven-year-old should be doing. For twelve years after this initial transplant, I was in great health, my transplant team was happy with how I was doing, and I just required annual checkups after a while. Unfortunately, I saw as a child how fast things can change. This was once again the case. [End Page 126] I was in my last week of college classes, just about to finish my Bachelor’s degree in nursing and looking forward to starting my career as a nurse in the neuro ICU. However, I once again became acutely ill with seemingly flu-like symptoms. After a few days of dealing with these symptoms, my mother brought me to the emergency room. When we got to the emergency room, they did some initial testing and told me I would need to be admitted for antibiotic therapy. The first thought that came to my mind was, “Would I be able to be discharged in time to take my final exams next week?” Once I arrived in my hospital room, I met with my transplant team. They delivered the grave news. The imaging they had done showed that the graft artery from my original liver transplant as a child had failed. The graft had thrombosed and I had infected bilomas in my liver. Now, twelve years later, I would need to be re-listed for another transplant. I was devastated and in disbelief. I recall telling my mother, who was with me at the time, that we should hold off on telling my dad, thinking this could not be possible, and we shouldn’t worry him over something that was not necessarily true. Unfortunately, however, this was my reality. I would go on to wait a little over two years for the perfect liver from a deceased donor. The road to being listed and ultimately having a repeat transplant was not without its challenges and bumps in the road. About three months into my two-year wait for a liver transplant, I received my first offer for a liver. I went through all of the pre-op preparation and the next morning went into the OR and underwent anesthesia. However, I...