Nick Razo
"An Angel left me a gift” says Nick Razo.
His gift was of life.
His angel was the family of a man who died at 42. How he died and who he was remains a mystery to Nick to this day. But he knows he lives on today because that man’s family decided to donate his organs.
Razo received his sentence in January 2003. Though he battled Hepatitis C for nine years, doctors said he was losing the battle. His was dying of liver cancer.
But the angel had a different ending in mind. And so today, at 57, Nick regularly counsels patients who are where he once was, staring down death and hoping for another chance. All because an Angel left him a gift.
In 2000, after being told years before that I had Hepatitis C, the ammonia levels in my system had gone up. It kinda goes to your brain and you get a kind of dementia. I was like a vegetable. One day I needed to go to San Jose and I found myself in Fairfield. Instead for going 40 miles south, I went 40 miles north.
Your brain goes numb. I would be in the living room and the next second I would be in the backyard and not know how I got there.
Then in January 2003, I was told I have liver cancer. Until March 2003, I received chemotherapy. It was literal hell. I lost weight. My skin turned gray. I lost all my hair.
I would look at myself in the mirror. There was no way I was going to make it. At that point I thought it was just a matter of time before death came around. So I took my family to Hawaii. Top hotels, the works. I was saying goodbye. Then in May 2003, I got the transplant.
It’s a gift. I now eat healthy and go to gym. I am thankful to the person who died and gave me life. I have been married to my wife for 25 years and we have two boys. I volunteer several times a week at California Pacific Medical Center. I meet pre-transplant patients. They look at me like I am kidding when I tell them I have had a liver transplant.You make them feel at ease. I tell them the only way you are not going to make it is if God does not want you here. If you made to the hospital, I tell them I am 99.9 percent sure you are going to make it.”
I talk to their families too. They are thinking that their loved one is going to die. You see the fear in their eyes and faces. You make them feel at ease. When I talk to people about signing up on the (state donor) registry I ask them if there is someone they love who needs a transplant. If not, I tell them to ask their friends, is there is someone they know who needs tissue or bone or whatever. It’s that six degrees of separation thing. We are in a close world, I feel like eventually everyone will know someone who needs this. And if they still don’t respond that, I beg them.
You DO have the power to Donate Life.
Make life happen …
California residents can check "YES! I want to be an organ and tissue donor" when they apply for or renew their driver's license or ID card through the California DMV. Or they can sign up online to be an organ and tissue donor with the Donate Life California Registry at www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org or its companion Spanish Web site, www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org.
Information about the impact of providing the "gift of life" to others through donor or tissue donation is at those web sites as well as at www.ctdn.org.