GAIL WHITE For living donor, there's no question -- it was 'the right thing to do'

"Some things just seem like the right thing to do. This was one of those things," said Bob Osborn of Salem as I talked with him over the phone.
I don't know Bob very well, but I know him well enough to realize that our phone conversation would be short. He is a man of few words.
But a man like Bob doesn't need to speak; his actions speak for themselves.
Last spring, right before school let out for the summer, Bob's wife, Deb, approached Susie Shields at Heartland Christian School in Columbiana where both women work.
"Bob wants to help," Susie remembers Deb saying to her.
Susie's husband, Joel, was in desperate need of a liver transplant.
After suffering for years with ulcerative colitis, a condition in which the liver does not properly break down bile, Joel was diagnosed with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis during his yearly colonoscopy in 2002. Doctors told him he had seven to 10 years before the PSC would require major medical attention.
"It's the same disease that [football great] Walter Payton died of," Susie explains of the severity of PSC. "This is the type of disease they don't normally find until it's too late."
Precancerous cells removed
In that sense, Joel and Susie Shields of Austintown felt fortunate. But two days after the colonoscopy, the doctor called back. The tests had shown a large number of precancerous cells on Joel's liver.
In March 2002, Joel underwent 13 hours of surgery to cut the precancerous cells from his liver. The cancer threat was gone, but the PSC remained.
"The liver regenerates [after surgery]," Susie explains. "But it regenerates with the disease."
After the operation, doctors didn't feel that Joel was recuperating as well as he should be. The PSC was progressing. In January 2003, Joel was put on the liver transplant list.
"The list is so long," Susie says. The couple was hoping for a miracle.
In the meantime, a new medical procedure was being performed in Pittsburgh, Living Donor Transplants, in which a portion of the donor's liver is implanted in the recipient.
That was the first part of Joel and Susie's miracle.
The second part was stirring the heart of a man that the Shields' barely knew: Bob Osborn.
Surprising offer
That day in late May when Deb approached Susie with the news that Bob wanted to become a liver donor for Joel, Susie was shocked.
"I said no," Susie says with a laugh. She knew Bob had undergone hip replacement surgery less than a year earlier and she knew of his persistent back problems. All this from a man with five children.
The Shieldses stopped all discussion of the matter.
The Osborns did not.
In August, one month after his oldest daughter's wedding, Bob traveled to Pittsburgh to undergo a week of testing to determine if he could become Joel's living donor.
"At the end of the testing, they said I would be a very good match," Bob explains.
The doctors and nurses in Pittsburgh were surprised to learn that Bob and Joel were not related.
"It is very rare to find a donor not related," Susie shares.
The hospital staff was amazed and astounded to learn that Bob and Joel didn't even know each other.
Effects of sacrifice
"It is extremely humbling," Joel says of accepting Bob's gift of life. "Without the transplant, I would still be on the waiting list."
Susie remembers the moment when Bob's sacrifice affected her the most.
"After the surgery, I saw Bob, a big, strong man, hooked up to all those tubes and the respirator and I thought, there's a man that didn't have to go through that, but he did." Then, the tears welling up in her eyes, "He didn't even know my husband."
"He laid down his life for me," Joel says. The two have become close friends. "There is a bond there that will never end."
As for Bob, well, he still insists it was all just a simple matter of "the right thing to do."
gwhite@vindy.com