teacher keeps upbeat while waiting for a life-save

liver411

Lemoore teacher keeps upbeat while waiting for a life-saver



By Jim Marvin

For The Sentinel



LEMOORE -- Sharlotte Ormonde is a wife, mother, singer, teacher, health care advocate and Christian. She also will die unless she gets a liver transplant -- and soon.



Despite that, Ormonde says, "I will myself to bring out the best," and she means it. Still, the clock is ticking. Her white cell count is 1.9 with the lowest count of a non-diseased person set at 4.0.



While Ormonde copes with a disease that is currently winning the life-and-death struggle she also faces the joys -- there are some -- and perils of finding a suitable donor.



Even though she's now on sick leave as an eighth grade language arts teacher at Liberty Middle School -- a job she says she loves -- her life and the lives of those around her are upbeat. "I believe you have to know sorrows before you can know blessings," says the 51-year-old woman.



She ranks her children, husband and close friends as joys in her life. And she almost glows when talking about the children at Liberty, the teachers planning fund-raising events and the gifts they gave her earlier this month on her last day at school. The teachers donated 102 days of sick leave so she will continue on the rolls even though she won't return this school year.



Ormonde said she got Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion she had during childbirth in a Hanford hospital. In a plea to other people to have their livers checked, she noted that Hepatitis C is the number one infectious killer in the U.S. People can be checked when they donate blood, she said, and early detection can literally be a life saver.



From that event some 30 years ago, she traced recent developments in liver transplants from a cadaver, and a rather new process, from a live donor -- first adult to child and finally, adult to adult.



Ormonde says she knows of five people who have offered to be her donors. That gives her good odds since, she says, one in five potential donors with the correct blood type can make a match for the procedure, which will probably be done in Los Angles or San Francisco. Her doctors, however, think there should be additional potential donors to choose from.



Being a donor is no Sunday stroll. There are medical checks to ensure a donation will take, and there is pain with the procedure that removes half of a healthy person's organ.



Her donor must have type O blood -- the most common. But since O is the most common, such organs can be used by people with all blood types -- on a most serious case first. "Anyone sicker than I am gets the liver first," she said.



Getting ready for the transplant and the procedure itself is expensive. Ormonde estimates the life-saving operation and the expenses that go with it at some $50,000 to $100,000 above her California teacher's insurance, which is considered excellent. She plans to pay all expenses incurred by the donor including the required four days of testing and, if successful, a hospital stay for the donor as well as herself.



When doctors remove half of a donor's organ and place it, both halves, the donor's and Ormonde's, will regenerate within two to three weeks to full size, she said.



Donors should expect weakness and will face some danger.



But even when a donor is found and the surgery done, life for Sharlotte will never be the same. She will have to take anti-rejection drugs and worry about the new liver falling victim to the same Hepatitis C, or the real, and almost certainly fatal risk of cancer.



Still, no matter what the cost, she and her family and friends have little choice. She has only 10 percent of her liver functions left. She added those who wait for a cadaver's liver -- there are 25,000 people in line -- have only a 20 percent chance because many are so ill by the time a liver becomes available. A live donor, for Sharlotte, must have type O, ideally be between 18 and 60 and be physically and psychologically fit. This procedure is 90 percent effective.



Gift of Life, a Kings County-based group that boasts of 20 to 30 people, offers liver-damaged people like Ormonde information and, most important, support. But, according to Ormonde, her church family at St. Peter's, her music, including her two professionally done CDs, "Songs From the Heart," and a Christmas release, her students and teachers are part of what keeps her going.



Her business card reads Sharlotte Ormonde, professional vocalist, Liberty Junior High Teacher and gives her phone number: 924-4841.



One of her concerns about donors contacting her personally is that she must make sure "1,000 percent that they want to do it." Because if one changes his or her mind, "it would be difficult for them to tell me. That's why there are other numbers to call to learn about donating."



"I live every single day as a gift," she said. "I could wallow in self-pity, but I don't -- usually."



For information concerning donating, call 381-0499 or 322-1795.



(Dec. 25, 2001)