"Not your average healthy living guy"
Nine years earlier, Jason had quit using methamphetamine after nearly 30 years of addiction. 他说，自从戒酒以来，他一直在寻找帮助他人的方法. But it didn't seem possible, 在他的身体遭受了30年的折磨之后, 他还能健康到捐献器官.
他说:“我不是一个健康的普通人。. “我以为他们会告诉我，‘你的身体就像火车残骸. 谢谢你的努力，但没用的.'"
Being turned away as a donor isn't uncommon. In fact, Jason's wife later looked into donating and didn't make it through the screening process. The transplant team told her that, 虽然她的两个肾脏配合得很好, she might not be able to live a full, healthy life with just one.
In contrast, during months of medical evaluation, Jason passed one test after another. He underwent a CT scan and an MRI and gave "copious amounts of blood" for lab work. He spent 24 hours hauling around a large jug to collect all his urine for testing.
最后，令杰森惊讶的是，没有更多的测试需要通过了. He was found to be a good donor candidate.
就在2019年感恩节前夕，杰森接到了电话. Someone desperately needed a kidney, and it was time to go to UCSF for his surgery.
A get-well card and a kidney
贾森手术后在十大赌博平台排行榜住了四天. The minimally invasive procedure left him with a few tiny scars, where small surgical instruments had been inserted to disconnect and remove his right kidney.
As he recuperated, his remaining kidney took over the work of his previous pair. Six weeks later, he was back at work.
He knew that somewhere, someone had his right kidney in their body – but who it was remained a mystery. "I just knew they took out my kidney, put it in a cooler and put it on a plane," he says.
He'd given the transplant team a get-well card to pass on to his recipient and included his email address. 他们告诉他移植后三个月就会送卡片. 每次查看电子邮件，杰森都在寻找一个不熟悉的名字.
Three months later, the email came. His recipient was the mother of two young kids. 她患有自身免疫性疾病导致她的身体攻击她的肾脏, 让她只能靠透析维持生命.
她的丈夫愿意捐献，但不适合她. With Jason's altruistic donation, 她得到了一个肾，她丈夫把他的一个肾捐给了别人. 杰森的捐赠总共建立了一个五人移植链.
随着COVID大流行的开始，大多数人都躲在室内, Jason's recipient was finally emerging. Freed from the intensive process of dialysis, her family bought a camper and hit the road.
其中一站是在旧金山湾区. Jason got to meet his recipient and her family, 亲眼目睹他的肾脏如何改变了他们的生活.
"Let's do the liver!"
还在为见到他的肾移植者而高兴, 杰森突然接到了加州大学旧金山分校捐款人的律师打来的电话, Sandra Weinberg, checking on how he was doing. "I was all fired up," he says. "I told her, 'Let's do the liver!'"
Sandra was decidedly less enthusiastic. Being a liver donor, she said, was a whole different ballgame, and anyway, he was still recovering from his last surgery. 至少在一年之后，再次捐献是不可能的.
“我听到的都是要等一年，”杰森说.
杰森坐下来等待，但他知道他会再次尝试捐赠. 他和加州大学旧金山分校的肝移植团队一起参加了一个信息网络研讨会, when the year had passed, started the liver donor evaluation process. The team needed to make sure Jason could safely donate a portion of his liver without harming his own physical and mental health.
Once again, after all the testing was complete, he was found to be a good candidate.
2021年6月，他接到了肝脏捐赠手术的电话. It marked his entry into a very small club; there are only about 100 living donors in the U.S. who've given more than one organ.
正如桑德拉警告过他的，这次手术不一样. Unlike kidney donors, living liver donors typically have open surgery, with a large incision. In general, open surgery means more post-op pain and a longer recovery compared with minimally invasive procedures.
"They open you up. I was under [anesthesia] for 10 hours and in the hospital for 10 days," Jason says.
Also, Jason knew that unlike his kidney, which had been sent by air to the recipient, his liver had been transplanted into someone in the same unit of the very hospital he was recovering in.
A momentous hug in the hallway
The medical team urged Jason to get up and walk around as soon as possible, to speed his recovery. On one of those slow-motion strolls through the unit, he saw a woman lingering in the hallway. 虽然很痛苦，也没有心情聊天，但他还是想和她说话.
我问她是捐赠者还是接受者, 她说她爸爸刚刚接受了肝脏移植手术," Jason says. He asked the date of her father's surgery, and as soon as she answered, 杰森知道他在和收信人的女儿通话. There'd been only one liver transplant on the day of Jason's surgery, and she named that date.
两人就在走廊里互相拥抱了一下. "I just started crying," Jason remembers. "I felt like God hugged me through that woman."
He learned that her father had liver cancer. An attempt to remove the tumor-ridden part of his liver had failed – the cancer had come back. 一位家庭成员随后自愿捐献，但并不匹配. Jason's decision to donate a second time had given his recipient the chance at a cancer-free life.
An ambassador for donation
杰森和收信人没有保持密切联系, 但他很高兴知道他们就在这个十大赌博平台排行榜上, 享受更多时间和爱他们的人在一起. "I feel like my part is complete. 我不需要从这个过程中得到任何其他东西，”他说.
然而，他对器官捐赠意识的十大赌博靠谱网络平台仍在继续. He's an ambassador for Donor Network West, 北加州和内华达的器官采购组织.
He's spoken on panels, walked in fundraisers and staffed tables at fairs and DMVs to encourage people to register as donors. And when UCSF's transplant team has a potential donor who wants to talk to someone who's been through the process, Jason steps up again.
He stays involved because his experience has opened his eyes to a tremendous need that is always there but mostly unseen by the public. "I'll see a sign in the back of someone's car, 或者有人在足球比赛中举着海报, about someone they love who needs an organ," he says. “有很多人生病了，需要帮助."
Looking back
他是如何告诉潜在的器官捐赠者他的经历的? Describing it as one of the most amazing events of his life, he also remembers the challenges.
“肯定很疼，”他谈到这两次手术时说. “前两周是最艰难的." But he adds that today, 除了肝脏手术留下的疤痕有些敏感, 他的感觉和捐献两个器官前一样.
作为捐赠者的精神挑战也很艰巨. 尽管杰森在他的护理团队手中总是感到安全, 他一直在与未知的结果作斗争.
"I didn't know if I'd donate the organ and their bodies would reject it and they'd die," he says. "Or if, for example, I'd donate part of my liver to a [recovered] alcoholic and they'd start drinking again and ruin it."
杰森把帮助他度过难关的原因归功于他妻子的“给予”哲学.
“我从她身上学到的最伟大的事情之一就是, 当我在高速公路边遇到一个抛锚的家伙时, my job is to be of service – not to decide what happens next or how they receive the generosity," he says. "The job is to give and let go."
