The doctor basically told me my liver was a ticking time bomb
because so I would never I never knew what was gonna happen the next day
I always thought it was to be a deceased donor I knew nothing of
a living donation until my sister brought to my attention and then
I I took it upon myself I did YouTube searches I did google searches ya
know I looked
I up all the stats and all that stuff and it's pretty amazing
because alot of people don't know about it especially in the liver that you can
when I tell people that my brother donated on there like a well how did he
die?
like he's living still, I didnt know you could do that.
but you can. I just took it upon myself to go get my blood work done
see what my blood type was we matched and I came to Omaha for an extensive two
testing
and found out that I would be the one that was able to
donate my liver. I was waiting for the phone call from my brother
and I gave the phone to my mom and I was like I dont want to answer it so I made her answer it
and he's like give the phone to brooke im a match
and I just I couldn't speak
really I was in awe. People know I'm
a pretty hard nose dude, im not sensitive in any way but when it comes
to my family
my family or friends they mean the world to me
so I had no fears
none whatsoever. With a great staff UNMC they really
calmed any nerves that I may have had. I was very nervous
I just remember being in our pre-op room
ready to go and they had to take him first
and the thing I'll never forget is him
rowing past my room with his cap on
and then just give me a thumbs up as I'm sitting here bawling
because I know he he's going right now he's is
happy-go-lucky is you know
thumbs up ready to go. For Brooke
the main goal is to replace her liver because her liver had
scarring and sorosis
and the goal is to make ur feeling better so we take her old liver out
and then we put a about a third
of brain and sliver into her and
that entails basically plumbing putting all the bloof felses back together
and hooking everything up so the liver can function the way her native liver
a normal liver would. Our philosophy as with every center that does living
donors
is to optimize the safety if the donor statistically the risk of dying from
this operation for the donor is 10 percent lower
so two to three thousand versus two to three in ten thousand
when you take a left lobe versus the right lobe on
it means that we may not be able to do living donors for everyone
and we keep an open mind whenever somebody presents to be evaluated
but whenever possible we want to
look at this from the standpoint minimizing the risk to the donor we're
still
one of the few centers that actually does isolated left lobe living
donation. The reason again for this is
just because their done. Our biggest goal is to make sure
the donor somebody who is completely healthy
can be saved for an operation that they dont need.
Nationally and at our center about five percent of all of the liver transplants are
from living donors.
Most of that has to do with how technically complex it is to take out
a part of the liver and put it back into the recipient
that expertise is not regurarly available throughout the Nation
This is not something you go and train for for a
couple years and you walk out and you're able to do
This is something that is a culmination of years of experience that here
at the Med Center we have fortunately been able to accumulate
everyone around us is dedicated to making this is great an experience as
possible for the patient
I I think we're also very honest with everyone
this there's nothing lower risk about what we do liver transplantation is
nothing
even a deceased donor straightforward regular liver transplant there's nothing
lower risk about that
so we take people who have otherwise you know
limited survival and we try and make it as safe as possible
we tryin really just make them feel like that they are the only patients that
were taken care of
and I think that's something that we
pride ourselves on being very good at I can do a lot more things than I could
I'm not as tired at all
anymore just being able to know that i'm gonna be there for my kids now that my
lover's knot
you know ticking time bomb anymore and I'll
be able to grow older with them
a lot of people were calling me a hero and this and that and I just
thought it was the right thing to do as a brother
as a loving person. The more I read into it, the more I was into coming here
and the staff was great.
they didn't fail me one bit and it was everything it was made out to be
The staff is amazing I wouldn't want to go anywhere else
I love this hospital I've been here since i've
been fourteen. So I know it inside and out and I know alot of the doctors
and so I trust them. For me as a transplant surgeon
and as a donor surgeon it is such a huge honor to be a part of what Brooke
and brandon did. It is very brave of
their whole family and to be a part of that is very humbling to see
what one person will do for another and we feel very fortunate to
be a part of that process for these two amazing
people and the rest of the family. We have real people that work
at the Med Center that are not just clock punchers, they just dont come in at
8 to 5, you know what they come here because they have a career
really enjoy what they do and and I'm very lucky to be a part
of a team like that. We treat every one of our patients as if they are our only patients and
we want them to be treated the way we would want to be treated
I mean when I meet patients for evaluation I say I would let any of my
partners operate on
me or my family member and I think it's that trust
and camaraderie among our team.I send lots of people to a
hepatologist. Even in our offices here
we have a hepatologist surgeon and I think
to have that team everyday working together is really important
I wouldn't had anybody else know we'll take care me I mean they'll the doctors
the nurses
everybody I mean they took care me from the time I was here at the time I left
and even after
I mean they call make sure I'm doing alright any changes
I mean it's phenomenal