Unbreakable bond

SAN FRANCISCO - Under other circumstances, Bishop William K. Weigand would have been on his way to Rome on Thursday, preparing to bid a final goodbye to Pope John Paul II.

Instead, he took another kind of journey.

On the ninth floor of the transplant unit at the University of California, San Francisco, the silver-haired bishop slowly and deliberately made his way toward the room of the man whose very personal gift has given him new life.

Wearing slippers and a blue flannel bathrobe over his cotton hospital gown Thursday, the 67-year-old leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento was free of the intravenous pole that has been his companion for the past week. His cheeks were a healthy pink. His blue eyes sparkled.

"I'm feeling better than I've felt in months," he told Dan Haverty, a Sacramento firefighter who last Friday donated a portion of his liver to Weigand, potentially curing him of a disease that was slowly sapping his strength.

"I'm not ready to run a marathon yet," the bishop said, "but I'm feeling very good. My only regret is the timing, because my life has been intertwined with this pope."

The bishop, who tries to visit Haverty for a few minutes each day, sat next to his bed as the two discussed everything from hospital food to walking routines. Weigand admired a new batch of cards, these from Haverty's wife's elementary school students.

Not very long ago, Haverty and Weigand were strangers. Now they share a powerful emotional bond, not to mention horizontal scars across their chests and matching hospital bracelets.

"Whether he likes it or not," Weigand said with a smile, "I have decided that we're brothers."

The words brought tears to the eyes of Haverty, who otherwise had been having a tough day battling pain and nausea. "I had hoped that I could call you my friend," he told the bishop. "But 'brother' is even better."

The surgeon who led the UCSF transplant team that joined Haverty and Weigand together said both men are doing well and could be released as early as today.

The doctor, John Roberts, said Weigand's operation came at the perfect time. When he opened the bishop's chest, Roberts said, he discovered that the left side of his liver was "pretty much destroyed" by primary sclerosing cholangitis, which causes scarring and ultimately causes the organ to shut down. The right side also was damaged, he said.

Weigand said that, as the disease weakened him, he began to think of death as a real possibility.

"Let's just say that I was wise enough to put my papers in order, just in case," he said. "It seemed clear that this was a turning point, that I would either bottom out or there would be a turnaround. Dan and Terri (Dan's wife) carried me forward, solved the dilemma for me. They steered the course so I could have a new lease on life."

Haverty, 50, assistant chief for the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, was an ideal liver donor because he was otherwise healthy and highly motivated to undergo the risky operation, said Roberts. Liver transplants from live donors are far less common than those from cadavers, and generally have better results. At UCSF, more than 90 percent of all patients are alive their first year after surgery, one of the best success rates in the nation.

A devout Catholic, Haverty said he decided to offer his organ to the bishop after reading about his health problems in the newspaper, even though he had met him only once and just briefly.

He and his wife invited Weigand to dinner at their home in El Dorado Hills as the possibility of the operation became clearer.

"We wanted to get to know him as a man," Terri Haverty said. So, over a dinner of teriyaki steak, rice and homemade bread, they talked about family, medicine and mortality.

"This came from Dan's heart," his wife said of Haverty's decision. "From the beginning, he knew he was the right person for this."

Weigand, bishop of the Sacramento diocese for the past 10 years, said Thursday that he remains overwhelmed at the enormity of Haverty's gift.

"I have only begun to think about the larger ramifications," he said, sitting at Haverty's bedside, a wooden cross dangling from his pocket. "I do think that it speaks to the nature of our human walk, which is all about our connections, our relationships with one another.

"This is a wonderful thing. It is such a great witness for society, for the world."

Wearing a Metro Fire ball cap and draped with a California State Railroad Museum blanket, Haverty recalled how, just moments before the two men were placed under general anesthesia for the operation, the bishop blessed him from across the room. Prior to the transplant, Haverty had undergone surgery only twice, to remove his tonsils as a child and to have a cyst removed from his little finger. He "trained" for the liver transplant by dieting and beginning an exercise routine. He lost 20 pounds and felt physically strong.

"I was nervous, right up to the starting blocks," he said. "But I knew everything was in order. The bishop and I both trusted in the doctors and the medical team, and in Christ's healing power. And I believe it paid off."

For the first day or so after the surgery, "I felt elated," he said. "Then I had a few days of 'Oh, poor me. This really hurts.' "

Haverty remains weak, he said, and the pain ebbs and flows. But the firefighter has been uplifted, he said, by the many cards, floral bouquets and messages he has received, many of them from strangers.

"It's pretty awe-inspiring," he said softly.

And, like countless others who have stared death in the eye, he has become keenly aware of life's small pleasures, he said. "My family," including the couple's three grown children and two grandchildren. "The firefighting family," and even his two Saint Bernards, Betty and Barney.

Before his surgery, on a poster outside his room, Haverty listed his Top 10 reasons for being a "live liver donor transplant dude."

The reasons range from "get to eat lots of lemon Jell-O" to "only way to get a room in San Francisco during spring break."

But reason No. 1, he said, is the real explanation for why he is here.

"Wanted to follow Christ's example by helping another in need," it reads.

About the writer:

• The Bee's Cynthia Hubert can be reached at (916) 321-1082 or chubert@sacbee.com.