Fight for life points out importance of organ and blood donations

Lisa Boggs has beaten the odds—sort of. She was expected to die within 10 years of contracting hepatitis from a transfusion while delivering her second baby. But, 23 years later she is still here but desperately fighting for her life.

Lisa, now 44, has had a liver transplant, but once again is teetering on the edge as her husband, Freddie, stays at her bedside as much as he can.

It is an up and down situation, he said. Last week he said she was not doing too well but was stable. But, despite massive antibiotic doses she still has infection.

Lisa is O positive, and a match for another transplant is not easily found. They thought they had one Christmas Eve but that fell through. She was number one on the list nationally but next he heard she was number two on the donor list, he said.

However, her sister-in-law, Lucy Smith, said Tuesday she has pneumonia and has been taken off the list until she shakes the infection. The doctors have said they have done everything they can. The Red Cross does not have enough of her blood type to make up for the blood she is losing in internal bleeding, Smith said.

Smith visited Lisa Sunday and said she has never seen anybody look as bad as the woman she loves like a sister. But, she has not lost all hope. The doctors said if she beats the pneumonia they will put her back on the list.

“She’s been fighting so hard the past couple of weeks,” Smith said.

Freddie added, “It’s a bad situation. I’m staying scared to death. It’s like standing on the edge of a cliff. You feel so helpless. There is nothing you can do. I do a lot of praying. I trust the Lord and leave it in his hands. They say they have done all they can. They are trying to keep her stable and comfortable.”

Russell Robinson with the local Red Cross got their son, Thomas, home from where he is stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif. for a week but he had to go back, Freddie said.

He’s served almost four years, including two duties in Iraq, and is due to get out the first of February but as his tour of duty is winding down they won’t let him come visit his mother again, his father said.

Freddie said when his son visited he told him they would have to sleep in the waiting room, as he had been doing for weeks. And they would have except for the kindness of strangers.

A woman he did not know came up to Freddie and said she had gotten him a room in the Marriott next to the hospital for five days. It costs $140 a night and he told her he could not accept it but she said there was nothing he could do because she had already paid for it. She left. When he checked with the desk to see if he could get her name and address to send her a thank you card she had left a message her contribution was anonymous. She only knew his first name, Freddie, the desk clerk told him when she paid for the room.

He said he prayed his wife would get off the ventilator before his son had to return to California so he could talk to her. Thomas got a three-day extension on his leave and the last day in the room the clerk called and said a gentleman had paid for three more days. They could not learn his name either. And right before Thomas left he did get to talk to his mother.

Freddie and Lisa were childhood sweethearts who met at 14, started dating at 15, and married at 16 years of age. They will be married 28 years on Feb. 28. Parents on both sides were splitting up so all they had was each other, he said. He worked at Wehadkee Yarn Mills for 22 years, until it closed, and she worked there for 18 years. They’re both disabled now.

“She’s not only my wife, she’s my best friend. She’s mother of my children. We raised each other,” he said. Freddie dropped out of school to go to work in the mill. He worked two jobs. Lisa, who got her GED, always took care of everything, he said.

Freddie still has hope because a miracle happened before when the liver became available as she was bleeding out. She was given less than 24 hours to live. She was swelling and almost unrecognizable when a physician said they thought they had found a liver. They transplanted her. He told a nurse to wish her happy birthday at midnight but the nurse let him in, telling him he could tell her himself.

But she never really gained her strength and energy back. She had to be hospitalized again. Her body began rejecting the liver. The doctor said if it wasn’t damaged too much it might regenerate but she was one of the 1 percent who never heal, he said.

Dec. 3 she had to be reevaluated. The next morning she had to be hospitalized.

Smith said her brother is allowed into the surgical intensive care unit about five times a day to see his wife and has to leave the floor at 9 p.m. They called the area where he slept on chairs or on the floor “the campground,” Smith said.

Freddie said things are better now. He has a social worker who got him a room in the townhouse. Last year he did not even know about social workers, he said. There are many places to get help if you know about them, he said.

All they prayed for for Christmas was a liver, he said.

“I’m not giving up faith and hope. We know what he did last year and know he can do it again,” Freddie said.

When people get their drivers’ licenses renewed they should remember to be an organ donor, Smith said. They give blood every three months. Without blood and organ donations Lisa would not have any chance at all, she said.

Lisa’s birthday was Dec. 7 and on Dec. 6, 2007 she got a liver from a donor in Puerto Rico, which was truly the best present, Smith said.

After the transplant, a jet ride to save her life, and medical care the bill was more than $1 million, Smith said. Medicaid paid much of it but the Boggs are responsible for more than $100,000.

“Now she’s got to go through it again,” Smith said. The part of the cost of Lisa’s medicine they have to pay is about $400 a month. She has to take 10 or more medicines several times a day. Freddie set up a system to make sure she got the medicine when she was supposed to, Smith said.

The Rock Mills couple has four children and a granddaughter. A friend is staying with their 13-year-old daughter, Kayla, and making sure she gets to school, Smith said.

Smith said Freddie has a savings account at Bank of Wedowee where donations can be made. Independent Christian Church held a benefit singing for Lisa’s medicine and raised about $900, which opened the account.

She said of Lisa, when she she was healthier: “She loves to work outside in her little garden. She loves flowers. She loves movies. She had so many flowers. She would holler ‘come look at this.’ She loves animals, anything to do with animals.” Smith added Lisa’s little Chihuahua desperately misses her.

If anyone wants to donate to help the Boggs they can do so at the Bank of Wedowee or make out a check to Freddie Boggs, note what it is for, and send it to Smith at 159 County Road 79, Apartment 206, Roanoke 36274. Anyone who has questions can contact Smith at 646-0306 (cell) or 863-6009 (home).

In the meantime Freddie is spending time with his wife and hoping for a miracle.