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less than six months to live.”
    Reluctantly, Jeff agreed. But it was only a temporary solution. Jeff needed a transplant, and in 2009 he went on the list. Family members were tested to see if they were a match, but they weren’t. A new kidney and pancreas would have to come from a stranger.
    In the beginning, Jeff called the doctor’s office every couple of days until someone finally explained it could take years before a match would come up. The waiting list was long, and he was relatively new. But it was his only hope.

    As Vanessa raced to follow the sirens, she prayed.
    Jeff’s truck had come to a stop in her co-worker’s lawn. Vanessa knew it was bad. His truck had left the main street and rolled through a backyard to the front of a house located on anotherstreet, where it had hit a tree. Vanessa ran across the street, her heart pumping, to see if Jeff was still alive.
    Please be breathing.
    A local officer from the sheriff’s department recognized her from the many calls he’d made to their house. “It’s his wife,” he told the officers restraining her, and they let her go. She could see that Jeff was still breathing, but paramedics didn’t have much time to talk. She watched as they cautiously braced his neck. It didn’t look good.
    At the hospital, Jeff was put on a ventilator. He had broken both the C-6 and C-7 vertebrae, and questions arose as to whether he’d ever walk again. But once again, Jeff pulled through. This time his recovery was more difficult. He lay in the hospital for a month, and then they wanted to release him to a rehab center.
    Jeff was relieved to hear that Vanessa would have none of that. She took him home and cared for him herself.

    During his recovery, doctors had “frozen” his position on the organ donation list. They hadn’t removed him, but he couldn’t get an organ until he healed from the accident. And recovery wasn’t easy. Even after months of rehab, he could barely walk. To get up the stairs, he had to sit down and go up one at a time—backward—while Vanessa helped. But they didn’t give up. Together, they got him well enough to walk on his own, to have his trachea tube removed, and to get back on active status.
    By now, Jeff had been on dialysis for two years, and he didn’t feel well. He’d started swelling and at times he could barely bend his arm to brush his teeth. His Wrangler jeans didn’t fit any longer, and the snaps on his cowboy shirts routinely popped open. His blood sugar problems were getting worse. Dialysis wasn’t enough. A kidney/pancreas transplant was the only thing that could help him, but he still hadn’t gotten a call. No one was sure how much longer he could physically take it.

4 The Nurse
    P ATRICIA W INTERS A RIZONA
    On July 4, 1976, while the rest of America watched fireworks bursting in national pride, six-year-old Patricia watched her father die. Patricia, her brother, and sister had just gotten out of their new pool and were drying off when someone noticed her father’s body floating in the water.
    â€œReno,” her mother said, calling him by his nickname, “if you’re kidding, I’m going to kill you!” Patricia’s mother jumped in—all 120 pounds of her—and dragged him out of the water while Patricia watched. Friends and family tried to resuscitate him, but her father died of a heart attack before the ambulance arrived. All Patricia could think was, If he’s dead, how is she going to kill him?
    Patricia’s life quickly changed. After her father’s death, her grandmother became her primary caretaker. Her mother became emotionally detached, went back to work, started dating, and got remarried. Within four years of her father’s death, Patricia’s family moved to Scottsdale, Arizona. It didn’t take long for Patricia to become acutely aware that she’d forgotten more about her father than