5 Fabulous Years

A little over a month ago I had surgery number 5. How ironic that it happened right before the 5-year anniversary of my transplant? I’d be lying if I said that irony is something that rarely happens in my life. My life sometimes seems like a sick joke (see what I did there…sick…ha). I want to do something a little different this year. Last year I wrote a reflection, but this time I want to write about something I’ve never been able to write about before. Something I’m incredibly proud of, but something that brings back horrible memories of the struggle I faced and how far I’ve come.

Every doctor has their one patient that made them a better doctor. Either the patient died on their surgical table because of something they missed or a slight mistake, someone they lost in a tough battle, someone that won an impossible fight, etc.

I was, and I still am, that patient. My angel of a pediatric doctor has told me that since I survived the transplant. She constantly reminds me that I made her a better doctor because I made her think outside of the box, because no matter what she did I never got better. She tried everything she was used to in patients like me and my condition continued to spiral downwards. Which made her try other things, leading to her yelling at the head of GI at the University of Minnesota Hospital and telling them as unfit of a patient that I might be, that transplant was going to save me. Because of that woman’s stubbornness I graduated high school, graduated college, and now I’m kind of an adult with a full time job living away (20 minutes) from my parents and taking care of myself. I owe her more than she will ever know.

Yet, she tells me she owes me. I think it’s crazy of her to think that since she spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to help me. She has won awards for being the best medical teacher at Georgetown University multiple years in a row and tells me that she would have never been there if it weren’t for me. She never lets me say goodbye without a big hug and reminding me: I made her a better doctor.

Explaining my medical background still feels like an out-of-body experience. From the outside looking in, it sounds impossible and makes me seem like I’m some kind of walking miracle. To me it’s just my life. I joke that my life would be boring if I were healthy. Thing is, its not a joke. I wouldn’t be who I am today if I never got sick. It made me strong, made me a fighter, and made me appreciate how precious life is. I was still alive and breathing before my transplant, but I wasn’t truly living.  5 years ago today I was given my life back, a life worth living.