"The Waiting is the Hardest Part"

That was Tom Petty for you youngins.

So about a month later I had my second meeting with the transplant team. This time they gave me the pager and told me to never be without it. Also if it went off to call the number and do what they say. And you can't leave the state because they need you to be within a two hour driving distance. They informed me that I was about at the middle of the pack on the list and it could possibly be six months.

!!!Warning!!! This may offend some.
Now the list is national, regional, and state wide depending on where the organ is harvested. For example if that place is Tulsa they go to the person who is closest to Tulsa that matches the organ. First they check the State of Oklahoma, then the region which I think is Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, and Colorado (it's different for every state), and finally if time allows they go national. More info can be found here http://www.optn.org/.

By this time I had just started working at the 7-eleven store where I met Dan. If your keeping track of both stories. I continued going to clinic about every month and doing lab each time. For six months, I had that pager next to me and it never went off, talk about a watched pot. Dan spent most of this time trying to get me to go to Dallas for the day- for one last blast with the liver and some fun. I think he liked my liver more than I did, he always wanted me to save it and put it on the mantle as a conversation piece. Now he says, "Look if you would have kept the liver and the colon you would have a collection!"