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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be on the brink of death before you\u2019ll get a liver because so many people are needing them,\u201d he said. \u201cIt took me almost six months to get on this list, and I was on the transplant list for almost a year and five months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An image of an alcoholic often comes to mind when we hear of someone diagnosed with cirrhosis, much like we associate smoking with lung cancer. But Brian had non-alcoholic cirrhosis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd the very first thing they asked me was how much I drink. I told them I drink beer on the weekends if I go to the lake or the Titans game, but I am not an alcoholic. I don\u2019t drink Monday through Friday. I never have and never will,\u201d Brian said. \u201cThey said, \u2018Well, you\u2019re not an alcoholic, but from this point forward, you can never drink again.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a fair trade and a no-brainer, in his opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tonya\u2019s niece, Michelle Parkin, volunteered to be a live donor and went through the barrage of tests and evaluations, like Brian.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe went through everything that I went through. I was going to get half of her liver, and we were scheduled to do that on Sept. 10, 2022. But she came down with COVID, and they told me we would have to wait 10 weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he wouldn\u2019t have to wait. On Sept. 22, 2022, the day following a canceled call to come for a cadaver transplant, Brian received the liver of a 50-year-old man from Chattanooga. He received health greater than before he became sick and a new perspective on life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said, \u201cWhen I first came out, I was on about 30 pills in the morning and 25 in the evening. I was on every kind of vitamin. I\u2019m on three anti-rejections in the morning and two in the afternoon, and I\u2019ve got to do that for the rest of my life. But all my other medications are wonderful. I was diabetic before I went in; I\u2019m no longer diabetic. I was on high blood pressure medicine before, and I\u2019m not on blood pressure meds now. I could fall over tonight, but I\u2019ve done ridiculously well. It\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He credits the surgeon and transplant team at Vanderbilt and the support of the community, his friends, and his family. Brian\u2019s friend, Kim Reed, received a liver transplant about six months before him, and she and her husband, Chuck, supported him through the entire process. He leaned hardest, though, on his wife.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou don\u2019t realize how much you need your spouse and how important your relationship is until something like this. She walked me around the house, helped me into the car, and even onto the lawn mower. No matter how sick I got, I mowed my yard four days a week because that was the only thing I could do. I honestly don\u2019t know what I would do if my wife had not been here to help me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider being an organ donor and speak to your family about it. Remember, too, that life-threatening conditions like liver cirrhosis aren\u2019t just a problem experienced by those who drink excessively but often a severe consequence of drinking too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brian said, \u201cI wish I could talk to kids about drinking. Something the medical team told me right after my surgery, and it blows my mind, is that they have 40-year-olds coming in with cirrhosis. We\u2019re a society that now says drinking is okay, and kids are starting so much younger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We don\u2019t realize how much we take things for granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve got my strength back now, and I\u2019m doing everything I ever did before. It\u2019s a new life, totally. [When you\u2019re healthy], you don\u2019t take life day by day, and you\u00a0always worry about the little things. I look at that now and realize that we worry every day about stuff that really doesn\u2019t matter. At any moment, anyone could be in the same shape I was in,\u201d said Brian. \u201cI\u2019ve got a different outlook now. I feel like everybody needs to enjoy their spouse and their family and do things they\u2019ve always wanted to do. Do it while you\u2019re happy and healthy because the day might come when you\u2019re not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m definitely in favor of organ donation, but to be honest with you, before I got sick, neither my wife nor I was. This definitely opened up my eyes,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A new liver, a new life, and a new perspective \u2013 Brian Riddle is living and loving life. GN <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" IT WAS just another day at the office. As Brian Riddle remembers it, nothing was out of the ordinary. To the staff at Dennis Young Insurance, where Brian is an agent, it definitely wasn\u2019t just another day at the office. \u201cOne of the girls who works there walked up to me and looked at me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":21232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnewsmags.com\/shelbyville\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/12\/4-2-1024x683.png\")
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