Hello Friends...

As you may know, I'm only an occasional poster here but I have been fortunate to experience the support of this community many times in the past and I wanted to share with you a story of incredible courage and community.

A couple of weeks ago, my son-in-law, David Lough started to experience a bit of fever. He stayed home from work but by Thursday of that week started to notice blood in his urine. The next day, my daughter checked him into the hospital. They quickly determined that he had a liver condition and that Sunday he was transported to Toronto General Hospital's transplant unit.

Sunday night, we were informed that he had to have a transplant within 48 hours or he would die. Many calls were made and emails sent and the next morning, 11 potential donors showed up at the hospital. (You have to understand here that the liver is an organ that can regenerate itself. A liver transplant can be received from a living donor: part of their liver is transplanted into the recipient and within 6-8 weeks both livers can regenerate themselves to their original size).

The evaluation of potential donors was understandably swift and by the end of the day a week ago Monday, a donor was selected. It turned out to be Ellen Long, singer Eve Goldberg's partner and a pillar of the Toronto folk community. By this time Dave's liver had ceased functioning and he was on life support. The next day, Ellen and then Dave were wheeled into separate operating rooms and the procedure began. By the end of the day, 60% of Ellen's liver was removed and transplanted into Dave. Both survived.

All this time, the positive healing energy of the Canadian folk community (which had been informed through the Maplepost listserve) plus the family networks of Dave and Sarah (our daughter) was coming to bear on the circumstances and, I'm convinced, led to a positive outcome. Here we are more than a week later and the donor, Ellen, is back home and doing very well. It took Dave four days to awaken from the surgery, but today, we visited him in the hospital and he was alert and starting to get out of bed and walk the corridors.

Miracles happen, my friends, and here we have many examples. This crisis happened during a holiday weekend in Canada and somehow, the right donor was found, the best transplant surgical team in Canada was mustered and the operation was pulled off.

Dave is not out of the woods yet, though, as researchers try to determine what caused this very rapid liver failure. We hope and pray that the transplant has solved the problem.

May I ask any of you who pray or otherwise seek the help of larger forces to keep Dave Lough and Ellen Long in your thoughts over the next while? They are both heroes.

Count your blessings...life is fragile and things can change so rapidly. I'm sure there are many of you who have gone through similar experiences and I would love to hear your stories.

Paul Mills