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When his mind said one thing, Craig Bex let his heart say another.
Shivering out of control from a sudden illness, the mind was saying he probably belonged in a hospital.
The heart said, "keep going, don't stop."
"The African Children's Choir was coming on Sunday and I wasn't about to miss that!" explains Bex, DD, PhD, the senior pastor of Edgewood Family Fellowship Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Bex enjoyed the concert but then sought emergency care at Mercy Medical Center, where he was treated for hepatic encephalopathy, gastrointestinal bleeding, severe fatigue, kidney dysfunction, and liver cancer—consequences of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).
NASH— a common, often "silent" liver disease—creates fat in the liver, along with inflammation and damage. It resembles alcoholic liver disease but occurs in people who drink little or no alcohol. In fact, most patients are unaware they have a potentially lethal liver problem.
A liver transplant was his only hope.
"I've been told my old liver looked like a shrunken football," he says.
Per his doctor's recommendation, Bex initially went to an out-of-state hospital in January 2008 for a pre-transplant evaluation—a decision he soon came to regret.
Unsure what to do, he turned to Karen Harmon, MD, a family physician and personal friend, for advice.
Harmon encouraged him to stay closer to home.
"Give the University of Iowa's transplant program a chance," she said. "Check it out."
Bex took her advice and switched programs.
"It was the best thing I could have done," he says.
Bex underwent a thorough pre-transplant evaluation by a multidisciplinary team that included a transplant surgeon, hepatologist, psychiatrist, nutritionist, dentist, anesthesiologist, transplant coordinator, and social worker.
Based on the results, a transplant committee qualified him for a liver transplant and placed him on the organ transplant recipient list.
Time was slipping away. As he awaited a donor liver, Bex fell into a hepatic coma (a decreased level of consciousness related to his disease), with non-alcoholic cirrhosis (fat build-up in the liver and scar tissue) and acute renal failure.
"I pretty much lived in a fog," he says. "They weren't sure I was going to make it."
Fortunately, the average wait time for a liver, kidney, or pancreas transplant at UI is below the regional average. A donor liver became available on July 14, 2008, and the transplant was performed soon thereafter.
. The transplant surgery team included Thomas Collins, MD, a clinical assistant professor of transplant surgery, and Alan Reed, MD, director of the UI Organ Transplant Center. Both surgeons specialize in performing liver, kidney, and pancreas transplantation, as well as hepato-biliary surgery.
The Center also offers heart and lung transplants for adults and children.
Bex has never looked back from his decision to seek transplant care from a world-class academic medical center in his own home state.
"I had a phenomenal recovery," he says. "I went home less than a week after the transplant! The whole experience was exceptional, from beginning to end."
For questions or more information about the UI liver transplant program, patients and family members should:
Call UI Health Access at 1-800-777-8442 and ask for the liver transplant office or call the office at 319-356-1137
E-mail liver transplant coordinator stephanie-heiar@uiowa.edu, gretchen-warkentin@uiowa.edu, or joann-ryan@uiowa.edu
For consultation or patient referral, physicians should:
Call UI Consultat 1-800-322-8442 and ask for the liver transplant office or call the office at 319-356-1137
—Michael Sondergard
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