In the days leading up to the liver transplant, Ryan Arnold told his older brother what he expected of him if he didn’t survive.
“We talked for hours about what could happen but probably wouldn’t,” Chad Arnold said. “It did.”
On Aug. 2, four days after the liver transplant that saved Chad Arnold’s life, his brother Ryan died.
The 34-year-old Watertown, S.D., orthodontist had a wife and three boys, ages 1, 4, and 6, and a vibrant life as a sportsman and active churchgoer.
“If I don’t make the most of today, I’m not doing him honor,” Chad Arnold, 38, of Castle Rock, said Friday afternoon from his hospital room at the University of Colorado Hospital. “The only thing that makes it possible for me to go on is that he gave me this gift. I’m going to throw my heart and soul into it because he gave me more time.”
Hospital officials say the rare death — only the fourth out of 4,126 such transplants nationwide since 1998 — has already sparked national concern in the medical community, coming just three months after a similar liver-donor death in Massachusetts.
Ryan Arnold was the first of 141 living liver- transplant donors to die at University Hospital, which pioneered liver transplants 40 years ago.
The hospital has voluntarily suspended live-donor liver transplants while it reviews what happened, hospital spokeswoman Erika Matich said.
“We will learn everything we can from this to keep making the phenomenal gift of transplant safe for donors as well as recipients,” the hospital said in a statement.
State and national health officials will also review every phase of Ryan Arnold’s care to try to discover what caused his death. Autopsy results are not yet available, Matich said.
“Any time there is a living-donor death, there is concern,” said Joel Newman, spokesman for the United Network for Organ Sharing. “It is very rare.”
The deaths of two liver donors in 2000 and 2002 were such a cause for concern that the number of the procedures performed in the U.S. dropped dramatically, going from a peak of 524 in 2001 to 209 in 2009.
In eight years, there hadn’t been any donor deaths. Then on May 24, a liver donor died at Lahey Clinic in suburban Boston, Newman said.
Experts are searching for a common thread between the deaths in Massachusetts and Colorado, said Dr. Connie Davis, who leads a committee at the United Network for Organ Sharing.
Chad Arnold began suffering from an incurable liver disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis 13 years ago. He had jaundice, tired easily and itched.
He works for Compassion International, a Colorado Springs company that provides food, medical supplies and drinkable water to impoverished children in 26 countries, including Uganda and Haiti.
About nine months ago, Chad Arnold’s condition deteriorated rapidly. When he learned of his brother’s condition, Ryan Arnold immediately went to a clinic and learned his blood type was a perfect match. He didn’t hesitate to volunteer to be a liver donor, despite the risks.
“He told me, and we kind of cried together,” Chad Arnold said. “I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”
Ryan was the consummate sportsman who water-skied, hunted, fished and was in excellent health. Prospects for a successful operation appeared very good.
On July 29, Ryan Arnold’s operation went well. In the hallway, the two brothers couldn’t speak because of all the tubes sticking out of them, so they fist-bumped, Chad Arnold said.
A few days later, the two saw each other again, still rolling around in beds.
” ‘Hey, I’m doing this because I believe in you and you’re worth it,’ ” Chad Arnold quoted his brother as saying. “That was the night before he died.”
There was no indication anything was wrong until suddenly Ryan Arnold was “code blue,” another brother, Rod Arnold, said.
Ryan Arnold’s funeral was Monday at Cornerstone United Methodist Church in Watertown, S.D.
Staff researcher Barbara Hudson contributed to this report.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
