In difficult times, love steps forward

DEBORAH and I had known each other for nearly three years and had lived together for about two when this story begins. We were both divorced, and neither of us gave much thought to marriage, as we were very happy with life the way it was. But then I became seriously ill.

Dealing with major health issues had never entered our minds. We took daily three-mile walks around the reservoir in Silver Lake; we regularly went to the gym and sometimes took yoga and spinning classes; we ate organic foods as often as possible; we drank bottled water; and we consume enough wine to give us all the benefits promised by the French Paradox.

So neither of us was prepared when I went to see a doctor and faced the kind of look you expect only in melodramatic movies and pulp novels. You know, the look that says, “You are dying, and there is nothing all of modern medical science can do to save you.” I have always loved movies, but why did it have to be this one? Couldn’t I have played out a scene in a Bond film instead?

Only the day before, I had been enjoying myself at a luxury lodge in the middle of a forest in New Zealand. But on the flight home, I experienced excruciating pain. I figured it was a kidney stone, or maybe the salmon I had for dinner shortly after takeoff. I barely remember the flight, though, as I most likely blacked out. The last thing I recall was wondering if my condition was bad enough to justify asking a stewardess to land the plane or find a doctor on board.

I went straight to a gastroenterologist once back in Los Angeles. He immediately seemed concerned, but it was when I answered his question about a change in weight (I happily told him that I had recently dropped 15 pounds), that’s when I got “the look.”

That day began an odyssey that went from an initial diagnosis of cancer in the bile duct -- inoperable -- to a more hopeful one of a rare and obscure tumor in my liver, allowing the option of transplant, and from Cedars in Los Angeles to the Mayo Clinic Florida, where I would ultimately receive a new liver less than three months later.

Deborah was there every step of the way. She literally passes out when she has to give blood and gets queasy if anyone even says “needle,” but she stood by me through hundreds of vials of what we came to call the “B” word, countless IVs and a handful of visits to the ER and ICU.

What if Deborah had not been around? Hard to say. My family did everything they could; my older brother and younger sister even volunteered to donate half their livers, but a partial donation would not work for me. But I’m convinced that it was Deborah’s tenacity and refusal to take no for an answer -- from me, the doctors and the insurance company -- that got me through this.

And if I had been with someone else? One friend was recently in Deborah’s position, as she confided to us. “I was dating a guy for three months,” she said, “when he was diagnosed with cancer, I wished him luck, and I said goodbye. I wasn’t going to get bogged down with that.” Certainly understandable, but not good from my side of the equation

And one ex-girlfriend was extremely New Age in her views. A militant atheist, I do not believe that the universe provides -- especially livers. Just ask the many people who die every year on the waiting list. Nor would I have been comfortable in those circumstances with someone who did. I needed someone who would fight inertia, fear and bureaucracy.

So I learned that relationships are about more than the superficial stuff, more than going out to nice restaurants and fun clubs or trips to Hawaii. They can be about life and death as there may be no one else around to take care of you. Choosing carefully is pretty important, and little things, like different taste in music, fashion or nightlife, really are far less important than you imagine in your youth.

We married two months to the day after the transplant because we wanted to celebrate being alive and being together. I was still frighteningly skinny and weak, but it was a beautiful ceremony on a perfect late summer night in my parents’ back yard. I’m very fortunate to have stuck around long enough to get married, and I attribute that to making the right choice in this most essential relationship.

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April is National Donate Life Month. Go to www.donor-awareness.org for more information.