MY HEALTH EXPERIENCE: I was hours from death and only another liver saved me, says TREVOR O' SULLIVAN
SINCE THE age of 12 I have been raging against the dying of the light. My lifetime of illness started with a traumatic event that is as vivid now as it was 26 years ago. I vomited a tremendous amount of blood on two separate occasions. It was the first manifestation of cirrhosis of the liver.
The first liver transplant surgeon Thomas Starzl described this symptom in his autobiography by saying, “There is no more terrifying sight in medicine than an ashen and panic-stricken patient, bleeding internally into the oesophagus and stomach and then vomiting his life’s blood onto the floor before anything can be done to help. Many patients do not survive the first such incident.”
The liver supports almost every organ in the body and when it fails it confers you with a multitude of ailments. The illness meant my teenage years were spent battling against seemingly insurmountable odds. My liver held out until the age of 20, when I was finally sent to Dublin to be assessed for a liver transplant.
When I was told that without one I would die very soon, I was inconsolable. I needed counselling before I was emotionally strong enough to prepare for what lay ahead. Waiting for a transplant is something almost impossible to explain.
On the one hand, you yearn for that call to give you a new life, but on the other side you know the second chance will mean the death of someone else. You go through every conceivable emotion in that time.
I finally got my liver in May of 1995 and was the 42nd person in Ireland to receive a liver, as the procedure was very new then in this country.
Within days my jaundiced and ravaged body radiated health. But my second liver failed three months later due to complications, and I was listed again.
I was hours from death and only another liver which came at the last moment saved me. The second transplant lasted 17 hours and but for the incredible skills of surgeon Oscar Traynor and the team, I would not be writing this today.
A few hours after that mammoth surgery, I bled internally twice, needing another two more trips to theatre. When I finally came off the ventilator things kept deteriorating, requiring three more operations to deal with chronic complications. Then, after an intensive recovery, I started to plan for the future.
The gift of a transplant bestowed me with an appreciation of life that is indescribable. It forces you to prioritise what is truly important and makes the trivialities that others worry about pale into insignificance.
It allowed me to fulfil my dream of doing a journalism degree in Dublin City University and also to travel to Graceland, as the music of Elvis was a huge source of comfort through those difficult years.
The medical profession could never work out why my liver had failed initially. I developed lung problems from the age of eight and this was diagnosed as childhood asthma.
But five years after my liver transplants I was diagnosed with bronchiectasis: a chronic, irreversible lung disease. And in 2006 those lung problems began requiring constant hospital stays.
In October of 2010 I was aghast to discover the source of all my problems: at an incredibly late age to be diagnosed, I was told I had cystic fibrosis.
It has taken me over a year to come to terms with that bombshell, but as before I plan to fight to the bitter end.
I will, in time, need a lung transplant and more than likely another liver as the cystic fibrosis will damage that again; possibly even a kidney as the anti-rejection drugs are toxic to that organ and I already have a modicum of damage.
I am here because someone carried an organ donor card. I have seen at first-hand how people close to certain death can become reborn. They take that second chance and grab it with both hands and make a contribution to life that is inspirational.
I implore people to think of the following scenario: if a doctor told you that you were dying, you would be devastated beyond belief.
But what if that same physician then told you they could save you with a new organ? You would most certainly accept it.
If you would take the gift of life, why not do the same for someone else?
