| My Liver Transplant |
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Page 4 of 9 What could I do? Here my only option seemed second rate care by a bunch of clowns who were probably running a study on second hand livers. That, coupled with being alone up in Gainesville for a month or so was not a promising future. . . A good friend and neighbor came to the rescue and got us into see Dr. Tzakis at Broward General Hospital. Dr. Tzakis works with my oncologist and with Dr. Schiff and agreed with them that I was in criteria and went through the process of getting my final tests and applying to have me placed on the UNOS waiting list. I was on the list for a little less than three weeks when a liver was made available matching my blood type and I was called for the transplant at about 10:00 am on Wednesday, June 20th. Ila and I drove to the hospital without knowing if the liver would be acceptable (they can’t tell until they actually get it out) and then went through all the pre-transplant stuff. I believe they wheeled me into the OR at about 11:00 pm and actually started the surgery after midnight. The surgery was done by Dr. Tzakis and took only 10 hours (very short for liver surgery). I was totally stable during surgery and the anesthesiologist even extubated me before I woke up. I spent a day in ICU and then 2 days on the floor and they kicked me out Sunday morning. |
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