Zadie is trying to remember a time before she feared dogs;
her father, the last time he genuinely enjoyed a meal, and Debbie, the exact
way she felt the day she looked into a mirrored ball and saw her future.
Living Donors traces
interlocking stories through three generations of a new kind of family as they
try, fail, and cross over their own boundaries in parenthood, joy, and
satisfaction. On a kind of nomadic childhood, the thing that stays constant for
Zadie is her bright inner world—a kind of compass that cannot be skewed.
Despite neglect and jealousy from her mother and stepmother, Zadie navigates
the channels towards adulthood in a style all her own. Zadie learns when to
break allegiances and seek surrogate nurturing. With help from her father &
friends, ancient stories from relatives, and her humorous imagination, Zadie
finds a sense of home in the world of families who count her as their own. But
at what cost?
LIVING DONOR
Stage Four, Type C Liver Cirrhosis
Living Donor Partial Liver Transplant
A
Guidebook
Any member of the family, parent, sibling, child, spouse
or a volunteer can donate their liver. The criteria for a liver donation
include:
Being
in good health
Having
a blood type that matches or is compatible with the recipient
Having
a charitable desire of donation without financial motivation
Being
between 18 and 60 years old
Being
of similar or bigger size than the recipient
Before
one becomes a living donor, the donor must undergo testing to ensure that
the individual is
physically fit. Sometimes
CT scans or MRIs are done to image the
liver. In most cases, the work up is done
in 2–3 weeks
Pros/Cons (as of
January 4th, at Dad’s request)
Should Donate:
- Mom
lives (?)
- I
don’t really like alcohol
- I
don’t really play sports
- Sympathy
(candy, flowers, at least a year [two maybe?] of niceness from friends)
- Karma
Should not donate:
- Mom
lives
- Risk
of infection
- Scar
forever
- No
semester abroad
- What
if I like alcohol one day?
- What
if I want to play sports one day?
- What
if I do it, and she still doesn’t stop drinking?
Zadie was
always on planes. She’d lived her life shuttling back and forth between her
parents, her grandparents, her aunts, her uncles and any other port in the
storm since her parents had split up when she was two.
The
way Zadie reasoned, airports, planes-- the entire process-- was like the
universe’s holding pen/distribution system. They were the cathode ray tubes
that zoomed you from one channel to the next.
Something
monumental was always looming on the landing end of a plane ride. A new life, a
new school, a new family, a death of something or someone. When the planes
dipped (and they always did) and everybody’s stomach dropped out—this was no
accident. The universe made it that way. That was to let everyone know that
something was always, always waiting to pounce on the other side of that
flight. That’s also why they gave out free snacks on the way. To distract
you. Small consolation.
Zadie
should have been back to start her spring semester of sophomore year, but she
was going abroad (probably) so she wasn’t enrolled in any classes.
Instead, she’d been subpoenaed to
her mother’s bedside. Not by her mother, of course. Even dying, Zadie knew
Debbie wouldn’t stoop to ask for what she wanted from Zadie. Even if it meant
her life.
In
fact, not one of those Buchanans had actually said in words what was expected
of her. But Zadie knew. Living Organ Donation. LDLT.
Her
Dad had vetoed the idea from the moment it came up. And while Zadie was almost
certain her answer would ‘no,’ she packed up all her skepticism along with her
safety blanket copy of Jane Eyre, and
collected her free plane ticket and her plane peanuts and boarded the pre-dawn
flight to Portland, Oregon.
“And
what can I get you t’drink?” asked the flight attendant.
“Diet
coke,” said Zadie, before reconsidering. “Actually, can I get a grape juice?”
“Is
cranberry okay?”
Zadie
rolled her eyes, but answered, “Yeah. That’s fine.”
“Whoops,
I’ll just run back to the station and get a fresh one for you.”
Over
the years Zadie had been flying, she watched her experience get downsized
little by little: whole can of beverage down to just the cup, then half cup,
then cup that was really exaggerating by marketing itself as a cup. This was
really a cosmic scam, considering that, as the years had gone on, the
detonation at the other end of the flights had gotten bigger and bigger.
When
the flight attendant passed her the shallow cup, the sides cracked and magenta
juice rolled down the front of Zadie’s light blue sweatshirt.
“Oh,
oh, oh!” said the stewardess.
A
sleeping suited businessman grumbled at the noise and rolled in the other
direction as he tried to burrow into his donut shaped flight pillow. Zadie felt
vaguely jealous of this man with his sleep and his business trip.
“Let
me just clean that for you, ma’am.”
As
she struggled with the foil wrapping of a wet-nap, the flight attendant did her
best to vamp with Zadie.
“So…
you still on Christmas break from school?”
Zadie
nodded.
“Your
college in Oregon? You headed back there now or is this a vacation?”
“I
don’t go to university in Oregon. I’m going to see my mother.”
“Oh,
that’s nice.”
“No,
actually. She wants part of my liver. Here, I’ll take that. Jus--just give it
here.”
The
flight attendant’s eyes blinked rapidly as she processed the comment and handed
over the wet-nap. Zadie just rolled over into the two empty seats next to her
and tried to imagine her mother as bloated as the pictures in her pamphlets.
Cirrhosis
is from the Greek, meaning tawny, yellowish.
That
sounds like Autumn. Like a stroll through Central Park-- not the bloating pox
that’s probably going to kill my mom.
After
she’d paid for her taxi and figured out which hospital wing to enter, Zadie saw
all five of her mother’s siblings in the lounge. The only one she was actually
speaking to at the moment, her mother’s older sister Mahriah, came running up
to her as soon as she stepped off the elevator.
“Thank
God you’re here!” she cried, running across the room. A nurse instantly shushed
her. Then Mahriah whispered, “I thought I was going to go crazy if I had to
spend one more hour with this crew. You’re my anchor, Zay.”
“Yeah,
I’m here. I can’t believe they’re all
here,” Zadie gestured to the sloppy, ill-slept mess of middle-aged Buchanans.
“I can’t even believe you’re
here. You hate her.”
Mahriah’s
expression fell. When she stopped smiling and her face got soft, Zadie could
see the faint outlines of where she had had her makeup tattooed on by a plastic
surgeon. It made it easier to tell how old she was.
“Zadie
Jean. I don’t want her to die. I want her to live… She can’t apologize if she’s
dead. If she dies, she gets off the hook. ”
From
across the room, Zadie heard the shaky, nerve-grating voice of her mom’s twin,
Deidre. “Mahryyyy, is she gonna take the
tests or what?”
Zadie
crumpled her face at her least favorite family member. “Did you take the tests, Dee Dee? I mean, you’re her twin,
allegedly. Although, ya know, sometimes I wonder about that. For all my mom’s
faults, you would never say Debbie Buchanan was a coward. That is one
confrontational bitch in there. Unlike you.”
“Oh,
I took the tests, you little brat!” Deidre finally turned around.
“And?”
Deidre
said nothing.
“They
typed you out because you’re fat, didn’t they? Number one criteria: Must be in
good health. That hasn’t been you in a long time.”
“I
don’t want to look at her anymore,” quavered Deidre. “I’m going to find Mawm!”
Zadie’s
uncle Glenn--the oldest-- just shrugged his shoulders as Deidre waddled off down
the hallway.
Mahriah
exhaled.
“Gosh,
Zade. I don’t, uh, want to echo my airhead sister here— but, in this one case,
um, she’s sort of right. Um, there’s actually not much time. And the tests can
take a while.”
“Well,
I haven’t decided anything yet.”
“We’re
not saying you have to,” said Mahriah.
“Who
is this ‘we?’”
“Ayyyyedunno,
Zadie. Everybody. Else.”
“We’ve
been here for days,” said her Uncle John, looking dirty as always. “If you’re a
match, Mark and me already decided… we’re outta here. Debbie still owes me like
three thousand dollars. I don’t even care if she dies.”
Uncle
Mark, the baby of the six Buchanans, spoke without opening his eyes from his
sprawled out position across three chairs. “Deb only owes you the three thou
because I borrowed four thou from her.”
He
opened his eyes and sat up. “Well, from you, really, Zadie. She took it from
your college account to get me to move out of you guys’s house.”
“In
1990?” asked Zadie, shocked. “Twelve years ago? You people really know how to hold
a grudge… And run out a credit line…”
“Anyhoooooo,”
said Mahriah, “You don’t have decide. But we don’t know if there’s even a
decision to make unless you are match for all the diff--”
“Yeah,
yeah, I’ve done my homework. Can one of you get me the doc? I’d like to talk to
someone…not in this gene pool.”
Mahriah
scurried off and returned a few minutes later with the silver-haired,
fine-featured doctor. He looked too young to have a full head of perfect grey
hair.
“I’m
Doctor Kennedy,” he said and smiled with big glinting white teeth. “I’m glad
you’re here. I think a lot of people have been anxious for your arrival.”
Mahriah
leaned in very close to their conversation, nodding somberly. Zadie stared down
at her aunt through squinted eyes.
“Oh,
don’t mind me,” said Mahriah. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
Zadie
looked up at the doctor and held his gaze. He clicked his pen a few rapid times
and bit his lip.
“Yes,
well. Perhaps we should discuss your options confidentially? In my office?”
Zadie
nodded once. “Lead the way.”
As
she trailed him down the corridors, Zadie scanned the rooms. She wondered which
of her many last names her mother was using these days. But then she saw it:
Room 207, Buchanan. Maiden name.
They
were rounding the corner to another corridor when Zadie looked back and saw her
Grandmother Jean emerge from the room with Deidre. When Jean saw Zadie, she
waved both her tiny hands at her, wiggling all her fingers, the way she always
did when Zadie was little. (“This is how fairies wave hello… they sprinkle
their fairy dust on you!”) Then Jean shooed
Zadie to keep going with the doctor, and pushed a truculent Deidre in the
direction of the lounge.
Dr. Kennedy closed the door and Zadie
took a seat in one of the two movie director’s chairs in front of his desk.
They were tall, and Zadie felt precariously perched over the desk. She could
see his photo frames, filled with Multnomah Falls and Mt Hood in the
background; Dr. Kennedy in the foreground with his trusty yellow lab. There
were Stanford things. A paperweight. A mug.
As
if the doctor could sense her discomfort, he explained, “I’m originally from
Cali. I wanted to be a director once upon a time. Suppose I still keep a few
reminders of that around.”
Zadie
shook her head. “No, no. Just not used to feeling tall, that’s all. And
Stanford. They’re sort of our mortal enemy…” She pointed to her own college
sweatshirt and the doctor smiled.
He
hesitated on the left side of his desk and then came back around to the other
director’s chair. He picked up the chair, turned it, and replanted it on the
ground so deliberately, it made Zadie laugh. She turned her chair too.
“So.
Zadie.”
“That’s
me.”
“Right.
I obviously don’t know you, but… I feel like I do. From your family and, you
just seem sharp. I think you know how bad the situation is for it to even get
to this point….”
“…organ
donor no-man’s-land, you mean?”
“Right.
She’s not even eligible for a donor list. She maintains that she only has ‘a
cocktail here and there.’ But her liver says otherwise, and I bet you would
too. And even if she were eligible? She doesn’t have long enough. Her only
option is LDLT: Living Donor—”
“Liver
Transplant,” She overlapped him. “I read.”
“Good.
Then you know it’s crucial that you are one: over the age of eighteen?”
“I’m
nineteen.”
“And
that you are one hundred percent willing, of your own volition…”
“Of
‘charitable disposition’?”
“It’s
badly worded. But yes. And, now… I know… that your family has sort of leaned
on you to do this.”
“Like
the mob?”
He
laughed. “I watch too much Sopranos.”
“Well,
here’s the thing, Doctor. You’re not
far off there with your mafia reference. But none of them have actually asked me for anything. More importantly, She hasn’t asked me.”
Dr.
Kennedy nodded.
“Right.
Zadie? Please listen to me. While I am your mother’s doctor, and while I cannot
ethically recommend you do any one thing over another, I want to tell you that
I am the person you can trust to…represent the
reality of this situation to you.”
“I
trust you. Very trust-y. That’s me.”
He
held her gaze so long it made her squirm.
“All
about it.”
“You
sure about that?” he asked.
“If
I ask your advice, will you give it to me?”
“Yes
I will.”
“Should
I give it to her?”
“Probably
not.”
Zadie
nodded. He clicked his pen a few more times.
“But
it may be a moot point once we get test results. And yours shouldn’t take as
long as the others.”
“So,
I should take tests?”
“Yes.
Whatever you decide in the end, it starts with finding out if you’re a suitable
grafting candidate. It’s more than just blood type. For your own conscience, I
think you’d be better off.”
“Okay.
Take me to the tests.”
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