Transplant surgeon recounts what it's like to wait for organ

In an Internet posting to a world of strangers, Bhargav Mistry, MD, urged someone to save his little girl.

"This is a matter of life or death," he wrote on a Web site devoted to finding a new liver for his 11-year-old daughter, Karishma, who was diagnosed with biliary atresia.

He asked anyone to consider donating part of his or her liver, and added that a healthy person can donate up to 70% of a liver safely. It was the type of plea that Dr. Mistry, transplant surgeon for MeritCare Health System in Fargo, N.D., usually heard from patients and their families.

This time, though, he was on the other side of the operating table, seeking a donor for his daughter.

Not long after Karishma was born, Dr. Mistry knew she would eventually need a new liver. Neither parent was a suitable match and she was placed on the waiting list for a donor in October 2005. Dr. Mistry said his facility does not do liver transplants, meaning the family would have to travel for the surgery.

Bags were packed so the Mistrys could leave in a hurry.

"We did have much more knowledge than the average person," said Dr. Mistry, whose wife, Bhanu Odedra-Mistry, MD, is an internist for MeritCare. "A transplant is not just about one individual. It affects the entire family."

Having performed dozens of kidney and pancreas transplants, Dr. Mistry knew the routine of waiting for the phone call about a donor. And he's used to getting called in the earliest hours of the morning, when a donor is found for one of his patients. But the call Dr. Mistry got about 2:30 a.m. on May 29, Memorial Day, was for Karishma.

"We were quite excited because she was going downhill quickly," he said.

The family drove to Minnesota. The transplant surgery started that night and was completed the next morning. Karishma, which means "miracle," went home after three weeks and is doing well with her new liver.

"The liver transplant saved her life," her father said.

Dr. Mistry and his wife share Karishma's story with the media in hopes of encouraging physicians and others to sign on as donors.

"If I can make one person become an organ donor by talking about it, it's worth my time," said Dr. Odedra-Mistry, noting that one donor's organs can benefit about 60 people.

At the same time, the experience has given Dr. Mistry a greater understanding of what his patients and their families endure.

"It has made me appreciate more how challenging it can be, not only psychologically but physically," he said. "I respect even more what patients go through."

The Mistrys don't know the name of the donor, only that it was a stranger's daughter who saved their own daughter's life.