The Giving, stories of organ donation (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798218753979)

Patricia and JoAnn rent a beach house in Florida while JoAnn recovers from her liver transplant. Rick rented the house against his father, Bill's, wishes. Bill's wife, Rebecca, died in the house 23 years prior, and she now haunts the house, telling JoAnn she needs to 'change the baby'.

The transplant process is presented through JoAnn as she struggles with physical issues of Autoimmune Hepatitis, which caused her to need a new liver. As the story opens, she has unanswered questions about her donor, donor family, her need for an organ, and the consequences of receiving the gift of life. She represents the mental and physical healing progression of a transplant recipient.

Patricia is a dutiful support person and caregiver to JoAnn during her recovery. She develops a tentative relationship with Bill.

Rebecca, after her unexpected death, is the generous organ donor for six people. Her husband, Bill, goes through the grief of a donor family and struggles with his loss. Her son, Rick, was a baby when she died and has no memory of her, but wishes to know more.

When Rebecca's mysterious riddle, 'change the baby', is solved, the story explores the journey of the six organ recipients who benefited from her generous gift of life (Terry, Sarah, Lori, Steve, Maria, and Jim). Everyone's experience is different and brings strength, courage, hope, growth, faith, and gratitude.

Terry is a young boy in immediate need of a new kidney. Sarah suffers from Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension and goes from being a healthy person to being on oxygen and in a wheelchair. After receiving a double lung transplant, Sarah agonizes with Survivor's Guilt. Lori is a young woman with dreams of being a dancer. When she requires a heart transplant, she's overcome with anger, fear, and resentment, but finds hope through therapy. Steve is a successful married man who falls into financial hardship, fighting pancreatic cancer while waiting for a transplant. His wife, Janet, struggles with 'caretaker burnout', but a family support person helps them realize the true value in life. Maria is in the hospital waiting for a liver transplant and is on her deathbed with NASH (Fatty Liver Disease). Her faith in God brings her salvation and peace. Jim is a man with a huge family and community support who has been on kidney dialysis for three years, when finally, a matching organ is provided to save his life.

As the story concludes, Rebecca fades away. JoAnn realizes that to give thanks and honor to her donor and donor family, she only needs to live a life of joy.

The author, JK Bovi (Joan Kay), was diagnosed with Autoimmune Hepatitis, a rare genetic disease that caused her body to think her liver was a foreign object and proceed to attack it until she developed cirrhosis. On October 5, 2019, she received the gift of life, a new liver, at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. After her transplant, she developed another autoimmune disease, Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. She spent 60 days in the ICU with heart failure. It's from her physical struggles and personal experiences that she writes the stories in this book. These stories are fiction, and any similarities to the living or the dead are purely coincidental. If this book helps one person, then it is enough.

Conditions Mentioned: Autoimmune Hepatitis (AIH), Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH aka: Fatty Liver Disease), Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH), Pancreatic Cancer, Rheumatic Heart Disease, Kidney dialysis, Kidney Disease, Post Transplant Delirium, Brain Fog, Postpartum Preeclampsia, Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), Esophageal Varices, MELD (Model for End-stage Liver Disease), ESRD (End-Stage Renal Disease), Organ Rejection, Hepatic Encephalopathy, Survivors' Guilt, Caretaker Burn-out.