Dan: The first time I noticed Sue,
we were actually in a meeting and I had dropped my pen,
and when I dropped it I looked across the floor
and saw a pair of legs, and I was like, I've got to meet
the woman who owns that pair of legs.
Here I am, 10 years later.
It was Tax Day. It was April 15,
and I remember sitting at my desk
and then all of a sudden, my body screamed at me,
"You need to get to a bathroom,
and you need to get to a bathroom right now."
And I immediately had to run
to the closest men's room I could find
because there was something that was happening inside me
that was something I'd never felt before.
When I had gotten sick,
Sue and I were just sort of meeting
and getting to know one another.
I was trying to keep from her what was going on with me
because I was fearful that it would be
such a turnoff for her
that she wouldn't want to stay with me.
My local gastro at the time was sending me for bloodwork,
and it used to be every three months,
but now it was once a month,
and then it became once every two weeks,
and then it became every week.
And at the time, there was concern
that I would have a liver disease of some kind,
so he wanted me to go for a test called an ERCP.
Abraham: I remember Dan actually...
I remember him because I also like him very much.
He came to us about almost 11, 12 years ago.
A pretty sick guy. He came from far away.
His liver was pretty bad at the time of transfer.
When you develop liver failure, the solution
and the only solution is really to replace the liver.
Sue: The first time he mentioned PSC,
I knew nothing about PSC. I'd never heard of it.
When he mentioned that there's no cure,
that transplant was the ultimate option,
I kept saying, "Transplant? Isn't that, you know, foreign?"
I didn't know anyone who had ever had a transplant before.
- I felt that I had to do a certain amount of research
to figure out,
is Penn Transplant the right place for me,
and I started doing research on transplant facilities
and transplant hospitals
not just in the Philadelphia region,
but living in New Jersey,
I was looking at New York City as well.
Penn Medicine had the highest success rate one year out,
three years out, five years out,
for liver transplant patients.
They have a world-class transplant institute,
and I just felt hands down
that I want to continue my journey with Penn Medicine.
Sue: [emotional] He... came over for Thanksgiving
and that was the first time
that I saw the serious deterioration,
and I knew it was serious and I knew we were close.
Dan: You know, one Thursday night,
Sue and I were watching television.
I was in a lot of pain, so Sue and I together
walked out of our New York City apartment
at about 3 in the morning and, you know,
Sue went and got the car and we started our drive
down to Penn Medicine for what we didn't know.
And I had to say good-bye to Sue that night,
and it was a really difficult thing
because you're at a stage with the disease
that you don't know if you're going to wake up
the next morning.
So saying good-bye to her that night
was probably the most difficult thing I had to do.
- It really is amazing to see how transplantation
can change the entire situation, condition,
how they are so sick before
and now they thrive after transplantation.
Dan: And in those moments when you feel lost
and you don't know how you're going to get through it,
you definitely need a support system,
but you definitely need a medical team
that you're confident in
and that provides you all of those things.
[emotional] You have this family of people at Penn Medicine
that you didn't have the day before
that are now rallying around you through your darkest moments
because they're not just there to take care of you physically,
but they want to see you survive.
They want to see you be happy.
They want to see you live your life.
They want to make sure that you can get back to that place.
After transplant, we had lots of conversations about,
you know, you've had this really incredible experience.
You've been given a unique opportunity
to get a second chance at life.
What do you want to do with it?
And I said I want a big beach house
where everybody can come to
and we can spend a lot of time with family and friends
and build memory upon memory upon memory for years and years.
I also knew at that point
that the only dream that I had left to fulfill was
I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Sue.
So today I'm not just alive, but I'm thriving,
and I'm thriving because I'm incredibly grateful
for a second chance at life
that I didn't think I was going to get.