History

Brief history of the situation...

Dad was just recovering from knee surgery, and Kate (his daughter) was pregnant with Colin.

That was December of 2004. He had been feeling some pressure, trouble breathing and upset stomach for some time. Hard to figure out what was wrong because there were other chronic things --like ulcers in the past--that confused things.

Except for the big bump under his ribcage.

After his knee surgery recovery, Dad went to get the bump checked. Turned out to be one liver cancer tumor. They said it must have been growing for a good year. This is primary liver cancer. Usually, this kind of cancer only occurs in people with hepatitis or cirrhosis (badly damaged livers) or people in countries without much food hygiene. Dad is none of those. Usually, people with liver cancer have it because it is a metastatic site of another cancer; in other words, they have had cancer somewhere else first (breast is common) and it spreads to the liver.

That was removed right away. The recovery was difficult, being an abdominal surgery, and dad with his knee newly healed, and being an antsy, hop-to-it kind of guy.

He was monitored closely...so far so good!

However, just under a year later, they discovered another tumor. He was referred to Henry Ford Hospital, this time, as the oncology surgeon at Karmanos (both in Detroit, MI) said he would be unable to remove this new tumor, as it was even closer to one of the major blood vessels of the liver. Surgery, again in November of 2005. They said all looked good, and they got it all this time. Surgery was actually done by a transplant surgeon.

By early 2006, there were more tumors. Surgery again in February of 2006. This last time, they burned them, instead of cutting the liver. More cutting means more scar tissue. Though the liver regenerates, it needs time and takes energy. Also, as the liver is the body's cleaner, his body has been without a full cleaner! So, burned out the tumors, but they did return, more quickly.

As it was not helping to keep performing surgery, and always a risk, his doctors put him on the liver transplant list in Michigan.

He was to have a therapy called Therasphere, which is localized radiation "beads" which would shrink the tumors while he was waiting. Just as he was about to have the procedure, one of the transplant team nixed it, saying he'd have to wait 30 days after that to receive a liver, and if one came up during that time, he could not take it. So, he waited.

He was becoming more physically uncomfortable. He and the family were just about to head back to the team of physicians (oncologists - hepatologists - transplant docs) to say "What is the long term plan? What are we supposed to do while we are waiting and what happens if we don't get one soon and I'm really uncomfortable...!"

And the liver came.

The call came early in the morning of Tuesday 13th of June.