Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 24, 1992 TAG: 9201240347
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By JOE TENNIS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
ON TRANSPLANT TRAIL
Nearly a year has passed since a pain in Barbara Collier's chest led her on a trail to Richmond for a liver transplant.Along the way, the 50-year-old Blacksburg woman had her gallbladder removed at Montgomery Regional Hospital, was in a coma that lasted nearly two months and survived numerous operations before and after the transplant.
She's home now, recuperating and swallowing 29 pills a day - 16 before breakfast. "I have to put them all in a shaving kit to keep up with them," she said.
She and her husband, Robert, 51, consider her success a miracle. Her recovery, for now, looks promising.
"I feel pretty good," Barbara Collier said. "The doctors said it will take a while for recovery. . . . They didn't say how long."
Still, they find some good in her pain.
People who hear a success story from a person suffering from a disease or burdened with debt from medical bills may be willing to help another suffering stranger, Robert Collier said.
"Most people, unless they know for sure something works, won't give" money to a person in need of an unusual kind of surgery, Robert Collier said.
"God's got reasons for everything. . . . Her sickness might help somebody else."
For 22 years, Barbara Collier was resident manager of University Village, a 195-unit trailer park. She took sick leave when her medical troubles began on Feb. 6.
When she first cried with pain, Robert Collier took his wife to Montgomery Regional Hospital. There, doctors discovered her liver enlarged and spotted. They also said her gallbladder should go.
Following removal of her gallbladder, Collier was fed through an intravenous tube. Soon after, her kidneys shut down.
That sent her on an emergency helicopter ride to the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. She slipped into a coma along the way.
Collier spent days on a breathing machine in medical respiratory intensive care. And she underwent surgery to drain her liver. A liver transplant followed three days later in a 14-hour operation.
But, she said, she remembers none of this. She didn't come out of the coma until April 2, three weeks after the transplant. Her first words were to ask her husband if the Persian Gulf War was over.
It was. But Collier's medical troubles weren't.
She had to learn to walk again. And her voice - damaged on breathing machines - was gone.
She came home June 1. Before the end of the month, however, she had to return to Richmond for antibiotics treatment because of mild signs that her body might be rejecting her new liver.
Barbara spent the rest of the year - until Dec. 16 - in and out of the Richmond hospital, undergoing two more operations.
The Colliers thank the doctors and nurses at MCV, especially surgeons Marcus Posner and Ken Brown.
The Colliers have been no strangers to hard times.
The couple lost a home in 1987 when an electrical short caused their trailer to burn to the ground. Less than two months later, Robert Collier's career as a truck driver - spanning 16 years and 1.5 million miles - got run off the road.
A tractor-trailer driver rammed Collier's truck in a parking lot in Delaware, Ohio. His knees were jammed into the dashboard and permanently damaged.
But, he says, "There's worse things that can happen to a man."
What happened to his wife was a shock to both; she had no history of medical trouble, other than operations to remove her ovaries. "Nothing that would put her down," Robert said.
"Honey, I was 220 pounds," Barbara Collier said, straining to find her voice. Down to 155 pounds, she added, "The wind would blow me away now."
Financial problems threaten. Medical bills have escalated to about $500,000.
"I had a little money, you know, but it's gone now," Robert Collier said.
Following his trucking accident, Collier remained a dues-paying member of his Teamsters Union - and he continued paying $149.08 a month in insurance dues to Teamsters Health and Welfare, Joint Council No. 83 of Virginia. When his former employer, R.P. Thomas Trucking Co., went belly-up last year, the insurance company canceled the policy.
It refunded the Colliers' March payment - even after the couple received a receipt promising coverage through April 20.
So far, the insurance company has covered $13,000 of the expenses at Montgomery Regional Hospital, plus $113,306 of bills at MCV. No payments were made for care that occurred after Feb. 28.
The Colliers' 24-year-old daughter, Diane Fenton, wrote to appeal the company's decision. And a financial coordinator at MCV is working to reverse the cutoff, Robert said.
The cancellation "left me wondering," Robert said. "If I can't get them to pay for it, I'll be paying MCV for the rest of my life."
The Colliers get by on Robert's $1,300-a-month workman's compensation and Barbara's $404-a-month disability check. More than $1,000 of their monthly income pays for Barbara's pills.
Still, there's no reason to worry, Robert said. "We just rely on the man upstairs."
Barbara added: "I just thank God I'm living. That's all I can say."