Above & Beyond

liver411

Above & Beyond: She gives her heart, and then her liver Sheila Reeves and her husband, Bob, recuperate together at home after he received part of her liver in a transplant to replace his, damaged by hepatitis C. Once 'the leftover girl' at a big blind date, she saves her husband's life. By Carlos Alcalá -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 a.m. PST Sunday, March 31, 2002 First she gave him her heart. Then she gave him a liver. It sounds like a bad joke, but what Sheila Reeves has done for her husband, Bob, is no joke. With Bob Reeves dying from hepatitis C, a viral disease that attacks the liver, Sheila volunteered to become a donor. She would give him the biggest part of her liver to replace his increasingly non-functioning organ. Such transplants haven't been done that long -- less than 20 years. At first, Bob wouldn't hear of it. "It was as if I could not put my wife in harm's way, and (risk) the future of my son with the possibility of no parents," he said. He later relented. Bob, now 49, and Sheila, 38, met in 1995. It was blind date gone bad in a most unusual way. A local radio station invited 25 men and 25 women to be joined with strangers. When the event came, there were too many men, and some were sent away. One by one, the couples were introduced. Bob was the first man to be paired up with a woman. Sheila was the last woman and, it turned out, there were no men left. She was dateless. "I was the leftover woman," she said. They didn't meet that night, but at a follow-up mixer where the singles were allowed to do their own pairing. Sheila almost didn't go, but her childhood friend talked her into it. "I said, 'Oh, yeah, like I'm going to meet the man of my dreams,' " she said. But when Bob Reeves saw Sheila there, he felt he had met the woman of his dreams. He asked someone who she was and was told, "Oh, that's the leftover girl." "I looked at her again and I said I was going to end up marrying that woman, the leftover girl," he said. They were engaged about a year later, but not before Sheila made sure they were compatible in three areas: religion, the idea of having children, and pets. She had four cats and wanted someone who could accept them. No problem. He had six cats, as well as sheep and goats, at his place in Shingle Springs. Their union was like "The Brady Bunch," she says, as her cats were female and his mostly male. Children were not a problem either. Though he had two older daughters, he was happy to have another child with her. Their son, Tony, is now 22 months old. That's not quite the happy ending to this story, however. After Tony's birth, Bob suddenly became ill on a family trip. At first they suspected food poisoning. Later, it was diagnosed as late-stage effects of hepatitis C. The disease is transmitted through contaminated blood. Although he can't be sure, Bob suspects he contracted it through a transfusion after a knee injury years ago. The illness was dormant for years, but when it emerged, it was so virulent that the first doctor they approached told them to get Bob's affairs in order. "I'm sitting there with Tony on my lap and he's telling me my husband's going to die," Sheila recalled. They dubbed that physician "Dr. Doom and Gloom" and got a second opinion. They learned a transplant might be possible, but were told Bob would have a two-year wait for a donor. "The problem was," Sheila said, "he didn't have that much time." When she found out about live donation, she asked if she would be a good donor candidate. That began a long series of tests to see if she could give him the gift of life. It was a hard wait. "MRI, CAT scan, ultrasound -- any test you can think of has been run on me," she said. She would undergo one test, wait for results and then go to the next one. "It was test by test by test by test by test by test," he said. To assuage his worries about risk she tried telling him that positive results would be a sign. "If I don't qualify, it wasn't meant to be." But she passed all the hurdles. A husband-and-wife surgery team at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center did the wife-to-husband transplant March 15. Things are looking up. There have been no infections so far, no initial signs of rejection. If there are no rejection problems, Bob should be a candidate for experimental therapies that will fight the hepatitis C and help keep his new liver functioning and healthy. As they recuperate, there has been an outpouring of help from friends, family and co-workers. Bob's brother and sister-in-law have come from out of state to take care of them at home. The same friend who encouraged Sheila to go to the mixer has been taking care of Tony. Parents at William Brooks Elementary School, where Sheila is a second-grade teacher, have set up a trust fund to help them out, while co-workers have signed up to provide meals through most of April. "Everyone from the district superintendent to custodians are all signing up," said Lisa Sutton, who's coordinating the effort. All have been moved by what Sheila and Bob have gone through. It's a remarkable saga, said Sherry Applegate, Sheila's mother. "I guess you would call it the ultimate love story," she said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About the Writer --------------------------- Is there someone you know who has gone above and beyond, giving of himself or herself in some remarkable way? Please contact The Bee's Carlos Alcalá at (916) 321-1093 or [email protected] . --------------------------------------------------------------------------------