Mary Jane Mabie
The hallway into the Transplant Clinic at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics appears serene as you walk toward a cascading fountain and are greeted with a wall shimmering with movement. The names etched into the Live Donor Recognition Wall seem to dance, quietly acknowledging themselves as the kidney or liver donors who helped save the life of a loved one or even perhaps someone they never knew. Heather Mabie of Neillsville, Wis., couldn’t imagine her name to be on that wall one day, nor could her mother, MaryJane Mabie, who received half of Heather’s liver.
At the beginning of 1999, MaryJane began experiencing symptoms that would last more than two years before it was decided she would need a liver transplant. Many moments were filled with terrible stomach and back aches and Charlie horses. She began to notice she was retaining fluids and her abdomen became bloated, a critical sign of liver damage. By October that year, MaryJane had received many pints of blood and plasma as a result of anemia, and at one point, had eight liter-sized bottles of fluid surgically removed from her stomach.
After two years battling liver disease, MaryJane was told in March 2001 she had three months to live. She needed a liver transplant and doctors at the UW Hospital and Clinics gave her two options: join the national waiting list for a liver or join the Living Liver Donor Program. The cadaver transplant list was too long, forcing MaryJane to rely on her husband or two daughters for life.
“I knew that Heather was going to be the one I asked because she was the closest to me,” said MaryJane. But she never really had to ask, as Heather already planned on doing what she could to save her mother.
“What goes through your head is that if you have to perhaps give your life for hers, you would,” said Heather. “I would give her my heart if I could.”
After a month and a half of constant testing, 48-year-old MaryJane received her new liver from 24-year-old Heather on May 4, 2001. Heather received two pints of blood during her seven-hour surgery. MaryJane required many pints of blood once again as she experienced uncontrollable bleeding during the 14-hour procedure.
Since the transplant, MaryJane has relied on gracious volunteers who donate blood to get her through the many medical complications she suffers from. At one point, MaryJane received regular blood transfusions on a monthly basis with numerous visits to the emergency room late at night needing additional transfusions.
Heather says her whole view on life and how she treats people changed after the transplant. MaryJane adds that a transplant makes you into such a different person. “I notice things that I never noticed before,” she said. “Five years have gone by and I want more and more and more. I don’t want it to end.”
The bond MaryJane and Heather share is compared to that of soul-mates. Yet without the help of the nameless donors who selflessly give blood, the Mabie family knows MaryJane would not be here, and they are grateful to those who give an hour of their busy lives to donate. “There are people all around you, holding their arm in the air or waiting for their bag to fill,” said Heather, who is a regular blood donor. “You just want to go shake each person’s hand as you leave.”