Stoicism helped me save a life
Stoicism helped me save a life. A few months back I read an article in the local town paper about a local woman who was in need of a live liver donor. She has a genetic liver disease for the past 26 years and is now in stage 4 cirrhosis. She was slowly dying and in desperate need. I said to myself “well someone will do it” I paused, and thought “yeah, SOMEONE has do it.”
I looked up what a live liver donor entails. They take 70% of your liver and give it to her, the recipient, and your liver grows back. There are no long term affects and essentially no death rate. She has a 95% success rate.
After lots of pre-op testing etc. a few weeks ago I had the surgery and donated part of my liver to her and we are both doing great!
I said to everyone that to me this was temporary pain for someone to live. I couldn’t think of a reason not to do this. And it was all worth it. The first couple weeks were tough. I’m still tired because my liver is growing back but I would absolutely do it again. All my thoughts on this came back to stoic virtues of Courage and Justice. She needed this, 17 others tried but were either not a match or ghosted her. I was the only one to stay around. I never wavered. There are so many times in our lives where we do small just things. Those are great. Sometimes that opportunity comes along where it costs real pain, but you need to have the courage to pull through for justice. For a benefit that far outweighs your sacrifice.
I have two young boys. My oldest who is 6 told me when I asked if he thought it was worth it even though it’s going to be painful to me for a little bit. He said “well yeah you are going to save her life, duh”. That makes it worth it as well.
If anyone is interested please visit: https://liverfoundation.org/liver-diseases/treatment/living-donor-liver-transplant-information-center/