Tori

Last summer/fall I went and watched some softball games played by one of Em's co-workers/friends. Got to know Tori and her significant other a little bit. They were nice people, good people, easy to get along with, vibrant, full of life.

For some complicated reasons I shall not go into here, they just got married this past summer. I have been bumping around trying to take the footage from the wedding taken on a hand-held video camera and set it to one of her favorite songs. Unfortunately there was not a lot of footage...the wedding was maybe 9 minutes long and the song over 4 so there were a lot of points where the footage was a bit repetitive. Not done with it yet.

Doesn't matter now.

Poor Tori. She had a disease that affected her liver. It took a while to get her put on the transplant list. When she got on it, while she was waiting her turn her kidneys had some issues. Because transplants are so tricky when another organ has issues a person gets removed from the list.

They got the kidney thing fixed and she got back on the list. Until her lung collapsed. Back off the list.

Got that fixed. Back on the list. Got moved to the hospital where they were going to do the transplant. Made it to first on the list for the next liver.

And tragically there was no liver available in time.

I don't claim to have been one of her close friends. We had a nodding acquaintance based on her working with my wife. But from what I saw of her and when I talked to her she was a very sweet girl, very kind, very nice. She was taken too soon. And it is sad.

Even for me it is a bit tough as it calls to mind how things were when Bob Nelson met his untimely end. And because I see the impact on Em and her coworkers.

It is all well and good to throw out pithy thoughts on how death is a part of life and so forth...and yes, they have some truth to them...but there is also truth to the thought that a young lady 36 years old, full of life, athletic, fun...there should have been something able to be done before things got so bad.

Seriously, if they knew quite some time ago her liver would have these issues, why not work at a transplant before it was absolutely necessary? I mean why push up against the margin of error so if something goes wrong there is still time? Pass off the whole "There were a lot of moving parts, it is nobodies fault" thing...the truth is someone ,somewhere needs to step up, find a reasonable, equitable way to rethink the medical system.

I don't mean the popular "Ooh, medical care for everyone on the government nickel" thing. I have thoughts on that but now is not the time or place.

No, I mean...let's break this thing down to the very basics and work our way up. Look at what is needed in medicine:

- research
-preventative care
-alternative care
-specialized care
-alternative care
- medicine production
- medicine distribution

Along the way the people doing the research, doing each type of care, doing the transportation, dispensing the medication, etc. need to make enough money to live. How much money is enough? well, that is something that needs to be looked at.

Along the way, while breaking the system down why not look at things like this. If there was an earlier look at getting her a healthy liver could this have been avoided? Should transplant lists be weighted in favor of people who need one based on no fault of their own as opposed to people who killed their liver with alcohol or drugs or whatever?

Really there are no easy answers. There is grief for her and her loved ones. There is stress on those who are left behind. There is sadness as we consider our own mortality. I guess really the only thing there AREN'T is answers.