Southwest Transplant Alliance

Jean Hall opens the door to her home in Texarkana, Texas, revealing a strikingly healthy and attractive woman dressed in a flattering pastel over-shirt and white slacks—quite the picture of health. If one had come to Hall’s door 15 years ago, a vastly different person would have emerged. On Aug. 16, 1992, Hall received a liver transplant from Baylor Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, leaving her to face an uncertain future of post-op medical follow-up care while mired in a failing marriage and attempting to cope with the anxiety associated with simply surviving to see another day. But the smiling, confidant and relaxed Jean Hall of today was inside all along.

And thanks to a “corrective emotional experience” with an understanding, supportive and affectionate new spouse coupled with her personal evolution as a voice of hope to others, she is now a grateful woman at peace who sees meaning and purpose in her trying journey. Hall is living proof of the opportunity for a quality life after transplantation of a donated organ. “I was alone for six years, and being alone, not being responsible for anyone or anything else, allowed me to deal with my limitations without exactly dwelling on them,” Hall said. “I could eat when I wanted, sleep when I wanted, go out or stay home—literally whatever I wanted to do.

“I eventually went to the gym on occasion, took college courses, took my medications and tried to remain active. My first day in swimming lessons at Texarkana College I was so exhausted it was all I could do to pull myself up on the edge of the pool and cry when it was over. When I came to the next class the instructor said he didn’t think I’d be back. “Then I took a class on memoir writing from John Fooks, and I began to learn more about writing, so I began to write. And I wrote and wrote and wrote and talked and talked and talked as much as I needed to about my transplant condition.” Hall was also fortunate enough to find a life partner and spouse who had a much better grasp of the health challenges facing his bride. Hemp W. Hall, retired teacher and part-time licensed professional counselor, had witnessed his own wife’s death while awaiting a life-giving liver transplant.

Hemp and Jean married about six years after Jean’s transplant and had little trouble establishing a comfortable relationship. “It was a good decision for both of us,” Jean said. “We have been able to have an independent, healthy relationship in marriage. Hemp doesn’t push me, and he gives me ‘creative space.’ I can go out and mow our two-acre lawn or stay in the house and write. It is like praying on paper for me. I’m most happy and content when I’m doing that.” Hall’s liver transplant was necessitated by a diagnosis of “primary sclerosing cholecystitis secondary to biliary cirrhosis, a non-alcohol-related, end-stage liver disorder.

Etiology aside, Hall’s transplant experience brought her face to face with issues of mortality, faith, hope, fear, anxiety and eventually, gratitude for having been extended the opportunity for self-realization. “I prefer to tell people I got ‘cirrhosis by osmosis,” Hall said with a faint laugh. “And that I’m a ‘transplanted, transplanted Texan.’ My family is originally from Pleasant Plains, Ark. Stopping the denial about my condition was very difficult at first.” As Hall’s wellspring of life experiences began to flow through her mind and out of her fingertips, she sought help to install a computer and then hired a 16-year-old girl to teach her the basics of word processing. She sits for this interview surrounded by the volumes of writing composed in the intervening years since her transplant.

Among the notebooks, binders, poster boards and single-page writings are family histories, poetry (“that’s my innards there,”) journals and slips of paper bearing encouraging phrases. Photographs of transplant reunions held at Baylor Hospital and at local gatherings reflect her involvement as a counselor, mentor and support group-organizer for transplant patients, their families and referring organizations. Hall is on a first-name basis with Southwest Transplant Alliance’s education coordinator and spokesman Pam Silvestri of Dallas and a go-to ally for local transplant patients while crusading for organ donor awareness. In sum, Hall is respected and valued for her experience, insights and willingness to share her gifts with “hundreds of families” she has tapped since getting a new lease on life. But under no circumstance should the casual reader assume life after organ transplant is all sweetness and light for all transplant candidates and survivors.

Post-operative care and powerful antibiotics, steroids and anti-rejection drugs are no treat to endure. Side-effects of transplant medications can be extremely uncomfortable, sometimes painful, and carry heavy price tags “fiscally and physically.” Hall’s thoughts on her most seriously threatening organ rejection experience offer a glimpse of the emotional turmoil elicited by the return of fears and anxiety. “But, doctor, it’s been five years. How can I possibly be in rejection now,” Hall asks her surgeon in a snippet from her writings. “I have not been back to the hospital except for check-ups in five years. I’ve taken my medication as I was told. I’ve been in every two months for my blood work. I’ve had biopsies at one and two years. There has to be a mistake.

“Just last week I spoke to a church group about my transplant experience and my finding salvation through this. I explained how God had worked a miracle in my life and how good my life is now. I don’t feel bad. I’m a little tired, but I drove three hours over here last night and went to a musical. I just can’t be in rejection... “Did you say raise my steroids? Those things make me crazy not to mention the chipmunk cheeks along with that mess of hair that makes me look like an ape! What if my numbers don’t turn around?” What if. What if is almost always operating on the periphery of an organ transplant patient’s awareness. Dimmer sometimes more than others, but, ever present nonetheless.

Maybe after 15 years Jean Hall is out of the woods, so to speak. Or on the verge of exiting the black forest of doubts associated with issues of day-to-day mortality. Or maybe not. But whatever Hall faces, she’s better prepared for it than she has ever been in her whole life. She says as much in her poem, “Trust.” “If I could hand my life to God/And live without a care/If I could trust undying love/And live without a fear/If I could just a prayer say/Move on quietly through the day/And trust the rest to God.—Jean S. Hall

Happy Anniversary, Jean. And thank you for making a difference in the lives of organ transplant patients throughout Northeast Texas and Southwest Arkansas.