Tragic Sweetness

Sporting News, The, Feb 15, 1999

If there's any good that came out of the news last week about Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton, it's that publicity about his need for a liver transplant is spurring interest in organ donations.

"Thousands of people are calling, finding out how to become donors," Payton said.

His plight made people "realize that you never know what's going to happen."

Payton, 44, was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a rare liver disease that blocks the bile ducts. Without a transplant, his doctor says, Payton would live about two years.

Payton said he has been holding up "real well" spiritually and mentally.

Unless Payton qualifies for rush status, he's expected to wait 100 to 200 days for a liver at the Mayo Clinic. But don't think that because he's a celebrity he's going to get preferential treatment. "The computer that houses our list has no information about lifetime yardage or batting averages," says Joel Newman, a spokesman for the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, which helps match patients and organs for approximately 4,000 liver transplants and 20,000 transplants overall performed each year nationwide.

The only criteria used for choosing from among the 12,190 liver transplant candidates nationwide, experts say, are a patient's blood type, geographical region and degree of sickness.

Although the median waiting time for liver patients in Illinois is 127 days, simple chance can twist such figures.

Payton could expect to wait close to a year because his condition does not yet put him in the most medically urgent category,

(For information about organ donations, call: 1-800-355-SHARE).