SAN BENITO — Irma Mills enjoys watching her grandson’s games.
She likes walking on the beach and vacationing in the Caribbean Islands.
All of this, and so much more, has been made possible through a liver transplant in July 2017.
“Practically life is back to normal,” said Mills, 63. “Of course I have to be very careful about not being around people that are sick and not eating certain foods. Aside from that it’s wonderful to be alive.”
Such was not the case in the years leading up to the transplant. She’d had fatty liver, which digressed into cirrhosis of the liver. The diagnosis sent fears of remembrance through Mills. Her father died at age 54 and her uncle died when he was 45 — all from cirrhosis of the liver.
“They say it’s not hereditary, but it seems to run in my family,” she said. “I am not a drinker. When I was diagnosed with it I thought, ‘I’m already going to die.’”
When the doctor said there was nothing he could do for her, Mills’ daughters went on the offensive.
“I still remember my daughter getting mad at the doctor and she told him, ‘If you can’t do anything for my mother, send her to someone who can,’” she recalled.
And so it was. They found a physician in Houston who was the director of a transplant team.
“I was very lucky,” she said. “Within seven months I got my transplant.”
But it was a frightening road getting there.
“As the months progressed, I started getting worse,” she said. “It was the beginning of July when I remember hearing the doctor say, ‘We’ve got to find Mrs. Mills a donor or she won’t make it this month.”
That was on a Monday, and the following Wednesday she received a call from physicians that they’d found a liver for her.
She remembered with amusement the first question that popped into her mind.
“I wanted to ask, ‘Is it a young liver or an old liver?’” she said with a laugh. “I was thinking if it’s a young liver I get to live longer.”
She quickly caught herself and said, “I’ll take it” to the transplant nurse.
And so she did — with no regrets.
“Things I never did before I don’t take for granted anymore,” she said. “I do what I want to do. Everybody says, ‘Irma you look good. Irma you look great.’”
