Liver recipient had only days to live
When Epi Ronaki was put on the waiting list for a liver transplant, he had just days to live.
As it turned out, a liver from a deceased donor in Australia became available, was flown across the Tasman, and was installed and working inside him 46-and-a-half hours after he joined the wait-list.
The 26-year-old teacher aide and sports co-ordinator from Te Puke is now recuperating in a flat at Transplant House near Auckland City Hospital with his partner, Alesha Williamson, a nurse, and their two children aged 14 weeks and 5 years.
Epi was in bed for a week with fatigue before the seriousness of his liver disease, later found to be hepatitis B, was discovered. He had been to Tauranga Hospital and returned on Saturday, July 9.
At first he wasn’t a high priority in the emergency department, Alesha recalls, until blood results came back showing how sick he was. He was taken to the intensive care unit and put on life-support to await an air ambulance.
“The consultant said ‘Now is the time to call people’. When you get told that . . . you know it’s bad.”
Epi arrived at an Auckland City Hospital ICU in the early hours of Sunday, July 10.
“At 4am on Sunday the consultant said he had two to seven days to live without a new liver. By the Monday the next consultant said two days. He was listed on the transplant list at 6am on the Sunday and he was first on the list for the next liver that came up in New Zealand or Australia.
“We were notified at 6am on the Monday there was a liver but they couldn’t guarantee it because the retrieval team have to go and see it first. We found out at 6pm they had seen it and it was all good.”
The operation to remove his failed liver began at 7pm and the transplant was completed at 4.30am on the Tuesday.
After a series of post-operative complications, things are finally on track and Epi can reflect on his brush with death. He wants to write — the organ donor service will pass his letter on — to the anonymous family of his Australian donor to express his thanks for them, through their tragic loss, allowing his life to be saved.
“I’m grateful to have a second chance at life,” says Epi. “I’m happy to be here to see my kids grow up.”
— Martin Johnston