Former teacher shares

experience of transplant

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Tom Jorgensen was already a veteran teacher by the time he was diagnosed with a rare liver disease 20 years ago.

Jorgensen taught sociology and coached girl's track at a high school in Ames, Iowa. His doctor discovered primary biliary cirrhosis, or PBC, during a routine physical in 1982.

PBC is a chronic liver disease that causes a slow, progressive destruction of bile ducts in the liver, which ultimately leads to liver failure. Treatment requires a liver transplant after cirrhosis develops.

These days, Jorgensen teaches people the five things his experiences with PBC, and some other assorted "Jorgisms" in lectures across the country.

Keeping a positive mental attitude, relying on your family and others, having strong faith, a sense of humor and taking care of yourself are the lessons Jorgensen learned while in the hospital.

Jorgensen first realized the severity of PBC while playing the piano in Norfolk, Va. He returned to his hotel room after hours of playing for an audience when his veins "erupted ... There was blood all over the room." Other eruptions followed, and on March 23, 1989, Jorgensen went in for a liver transplant.

He recovered after 18 hours in surgery and two weeks in a coma. Up to that point, he had only 12 hours to live but outlasted that expectation when he lasted nearly seven days. He woke up three days later with his wife by his side, asking him if he wanted ice. He had pictures of his family on the ceiling of his hospital room to help wake him up. And, being a coach, Jorgensen had ESPN on the television in his room.

Recuperation proved tough. He had to learn to walk and talk all over again. After spending of 126 days in a hospital, Jorgensen returned to Ames High School and taught half-days and coached for another nine years. He retired three years ago.

"I looked at myself and asked 'Why did I live? Why did I make it? Why is it that so many others did not?'" Jorgensen told the crowd. "I found out some things, some keys to successful living."

His life-threatening experience taught him were to value the support others give, regardless of how well or how bad things are going. Jorgensen had 18 people in the waiting room during his operation and received 1,400 cards and letters, many from former students, while his was in the hospital. He arrived home to find that neighbors had landscaped his new house for him and $80,000 was raised to help him fight PBC; he used half of it and gave the rest to others.

While hospitalized, he couldn't write or talk. However, he could pray and a nurse helped him remember his faith. He told the audience he prayer the Lord's Prayer "5,000 times a day."

He also had a sense of humor. Someone once asked him, "Are you having problems with rejection?" Jorgensen replied, "Only when I ask the nurse to marry me."

"Humor doesn't cure, but it does heal," he smiled.

Jorgensen no longer takes his health for granted. He doesn't drink alcohol, smoke or use salt these days. He told the audience he wouldn't have made it if he'd been a smoker.

The lessons continued after he left the hospital. He got a call not too long after he came home from a student. She came over to his house and when he opened the door, she was crying; her five-year old daughter needed a transplant and only had a short time to live. A fraternity brother of his died because no heart was available for transplant.

But more troubling is the relationship he's had with the family of the 19-year old San Francisco man, whose liver he now has. Jorgensen has written them letters constantly over the last 10 years. To date he has never received a response.

Among the many maxims he shared with the audience his many "Jorgisms" -- one was that life is a journey, not a destination. Another is that God doesn't test us, life does.

Jorgensen said the average liver transplant patient lives seven years. Come May, he will have lived 13 years.

"Life is black and white until you have a transplant," he said. "Then it's in living color."