Ron was hospitalized in the fall of 1997 for what doctors thought was a bleeding ulcer. He was again hospitalized in May 1998 for the same symptoms, but subsequent tests revealed liver problems.
The doctors at Sioux Valley Hospital referred Ron to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, and in July 1998 Ron’s final diagnosis was non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver.
This diagnosis is used when the doctors have difficulty classifying a liver illness. Doctors are not positive what caused Ron’s liver to fail.
Ron and his wife, Marlys, traveled to Rochester every four to six months for more testing. On June 10, 1999, Ron’s health had deteriorated so dramatically he was put on the transplant list.
Some of Ron’s symptoms included loss of memory, confusion, lethargy and sleeplessness. The liver cleans the toxins out of the body, and when it is not working properly, the toxins attack the brain.
Ron regularly had more than 20 pounds of fluid drained out of his abdomen in procedures at Mayo Clinic, because his body was not properly disposing of waste.
Ron’s blood type, O positive, is common, so while more organs matched his type, the number of people needing an organ with this blood type was also greater.
Because the liver rejuvenates itself, a large person can be transplanted with a small liver, but a small person can only receive a small liver. As a large person, Ron had more chances for a transplant.
Marlys received the call this summer at 1 p.m. on Aug. 28 that Mayo Clinic was sending a team to retrieve a liver from a donor. Transplant recipients have four hours to reach the hospital after they are called. Marlys said it takes exactly three hours and 10 minutes to drive from their door in Beaver Creek to the hospital in Rochester.
When Ron arrived at the hospital doctors performed more tests before the transplant. He was wheeled into surgery at midnight on Aug. 29, and the transplant was complete by 5:30 a.m.
Ron was taken back into the operating room at 2 p.m. so surgeons could repair a stitch that had given way.
Ron was hospitalized for 10 days, then transferred to The Gift Of Life House, where transplant recipients stay after their operations. This allows them to remain in close proximity of the hospital and to bond with others in similar situations. No medical care is administered at Gift of Life, so Marlys was Ron’s caregiver. They remained at the house for another 14 days.
"It was amazing, some of the people. They were from all over," Ron said Monday night at his home in Beaver Creek. "They were there for so many different things. It made me feel like getting a liver transplant was not such a big deal."
"The transplant house is a wonderful facility," Marlys said. "We could be around people who understood what we were going through. It is a healing process."
Friends and family gave Ron and Marlys a hearty welcome when they arrived home.
Their children Linnea, 19, Ryan, 22, and his family were waiting for them, not to mention many friends.
"We so appreciated all the prayers, cards, food and money from people," Marlys said. "When the time came all this goodness happened that they did not have to do. Living in a community like this is wonderful."
Doctors predict it will take Ron about a year to recover fully from his transplant. He has regularly scheduled checkups at Mayo Clinic, and results from blood tests at Luverne Medical Center are sent to his doctors at Mayo.
Ron’s sister-in-law, Phyllis Tschudy, Beresford, S.D., wrote a letter to the Hills Crescent soon after his transplant.
"It was truly a miracle watching his color start to come back, cheeks fill out and hands get warm, all within one-half day following the surgery," she said in her letter, published Sept. 14.
Ron currently takes three different anti-rejection drugs, and he hopes to taper off to just one prescription in the future.
"It has been a challenge," Marlys said, "but I do not have to look very far to find people with a lot more problems than us. I know Ron will get better."
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