One year post transplant

April 17, 1999

My Senior Recital at the University of Iowa. I was so blessed to have my whole family there to celebrate that milestone, but more importantly the health of my Dad. It was awesome!

Did you know that this month is also Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness month?

The PSA's just keep on coming!! Who knew you could come to this blog for some good ole fashioned information.


Some of you know that my Dad had a liver transplant nearly Ten Years (yes, I'm capitalizing it!) ago. He is in amazing health and doing really well. I'm going to post a little bit each day of his story, through my eyes, on his road to a new liver, and ending with a great article he just wrote.


This Thursday, April 17th, marks his transplant date. And with an amazing amount of humble gratitude and thanks, we also remember that day as the day a family lost their dad, husband and grandpa.



Tonite I'm going to talk about where I was and how I heard about his transplant.

The Eggers - December 1996 (about 16 months pre transplant - people would comment on Dad's "great tan")

The Spring of 1998 (and second semester of my Junior year of college) I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad. For various reasons I decided on Swansea, Wales. My Dad had been pretty sick, on and off for years. He was still working, although jaundice and a bit mental, but was doing ok. My Mom (who had really been keeping our family afloat for the last few years) told me inexplicably that once I was there I would only be allowed to come home for a funeral.



Two days before I left for Wales, a friend invited me to sing at her church. In the middle of my solo I literally burst into tears because I looked at my Dad and felt so strongly that that would be the situation. Thankfully I recovered enough to finish and by the grace of God also met a family after the service who had just gone through the same thing. All the woman had to do was look at Dad and see that we were in the same boat her family was in before her son had a liver transplant a year or so before. My mom and I talked to her for a long time.... It was amazing the amount of hope and insight she gave us and I felt ready to go on my trip. And of course, Dad wanted me to go - if he had asked me to stay I would have.

New Years Eve 1997 - about 2 weeks before I left for Wales

Fast forward through amazing friends and memories of my study abroad experience to Easter. Swansea had a whole month break, which I took traveling solo to all my roomie's homes across Wales and England. I also checked out Scotland and Ireland. On my way through Birmingham I had Easter with the Duffy family, one of my roommates, and had an amazing time. After dinner I got a call from my Mom that Dad was hospitalized. I'll leave out the ugly details, but basically his intestines were done working and things were....ahem...backing up and he was in an incredible amount of pain. Luckily he got to the hospital in time for them to fix that problem and they decided to keep him a few more days for observation. This was a good thing because he then moved up the "list" since he was getting so much sicker.

Whiskey Tasting in Dublin - yes, this was right before I got toasted and fell on the bus on the way home!!! Look at all those cups!!

View from my B&B Window

Optimistically I headed to Dublin and then on to Galway hoping for the best. Once I got to Galway I booked into an amazing B&B overlooking the ocean and woke up refreshed and happy, but with a nagging urge to call home. I had just talked to my Mom the night before to check on Dad and all was well. However, I felt the need to call again. It was 8am Ireland time, and only 2am USA time, so that wouldn't have gone over very well. So I ate breakfast, took a walk along the beach, wrote in my journal and hit the town to shop/sight see. At 11:30am I couldn't wait any longer and decided that 5:30am was somewhat acceptable since Mom would be up to get ready for school soon anyway.

On the beach, killing some time before the shops opened

I used the annoying phone card at an open phone box right smack in the middle of town and the taxi queue. It rang several times and my Nana picked up. I was a little surprised at that, since I didn't know they were in town. The conversation went a little like this:


Me - Hi Nana, I didn't know you were home?


Nana - Oh, well..who is this? (she had early stages of dementia at this point)


Me- Um, it's me, Kristen, I'm calling from Ireland!


Nana - Wow!


Me- Is Mom there?


Nana - No, of course not!


Me - What??


Nana - Don't you know? Your Dad is getting his new liver!


Me - (bursting into tears) WHAT?


Nana - He's getting his new liver, didn't you know?


Me - Of course not, I'm in Ireland!



And then the details followed. Dad was woke up by a nurse at 2am (that's 8am Ireland time) and was told there was a match - it was TIME! Calls were made, my brother round up from the bars in Lincoln by his roomies, family and pastors on the move!


I was a wreck. When I hung up the phone, the cabbies were looking at me like I was crazy. I went into a pub (what else could I do??) to get a drink and meal and regain my composure. Once again, people were staring at me. I went to the bathroom to freshen up and realized that I had been walking around with mascara running down my face - I look like I had been beat up! After my meal I walked around Galway, found the nearest church and sat down in a pew and cried some more. The evening rolled around and I was back on the beach - praying again, hoping all was well and a nervous wreck.


I stayed up well past midnight Ireland time to get ahold of my Mom - he did great in surgery and all was well. By the time I headed back to Dublin the next day, I was able to talk to Dad on the phone at the Ferry Station back to Holyhead. He sounded great!

Three weeks post-op at at wedding. My friend met me in London and brought it with him so I could see how great he looked. Remember life without digital pictures?

And now here we are - 10 years later - It's just amazing.......