Transplant gives him 'fabulous' life

Every day is a gift for Brian Eagle. PHOTO/STEPHEN PARKER

Liver gift allowed minister to live life in the 'here and now'

It's a long time since Brian Eagle felt "liverish".

Why should he?

He's got a perfect specimen of the vital organ tucked away inside him.

That wasn't always the case-in his 40s his Wellington doctor suggested he had a "mid life health check". It threw up that there was something amiss with his liver, plus he was a potential diabetic.

Some years on the Methodist minister was living in Rotorua when he began to feel "totally feeble". He spent most of his time at a 1998 church conference in the sickbay. In May the following year he had his first diabetic 'incident'.

Rotorua Hospital sent him to its Waikato counterpart which, in turn, referred him to Auckland's Liver Transplant Unit.

"The outcome was I was immediately listed for a transplant, had to stay close by until a suitable match was available." Throughout the night of September 8-9 that year he spent nine hours on the operating table, waking up to a newly implanted donor liver.

Like most donor recipients he has no idea from whom, or where, it came. Brian has suspicions it may have been Australia, or somewhere far distant from Auckland. That supposition's based on a biopsy a day after his transplant, needed because a portion of his new liver had still been frozen when it was implanted.

The donor's location is immaterial to Brian, his gratitude to that unknown person, is beyond measure.

"I found it very difficult to know how do you say thank you to the donor's family, people I don't know, for the gift of life. It took some months to write to them via the transplant unit."

He's equally grateful to the medical team who facilitated his ongoing good health.

Brian's liver problems were diagnosed as sarcoidosis (organ inflammation), a rare condition he would have likely been genetically predisposed to.

"But it needs a trigger of some sort, it was suggested pine pollen could have been the catalyst, that fitted my scenario; as a kid in Wellington we had a big pine behind our house, when I was a minister in Tokoroa we lived alongside the Kinleith forest. I asked the physician whether we should move out of Rotorua which has so much pollen but he said it wasn't necessary, the chances of me getting it a second time would be pretty unlucky."

The sarcoidosis triggered cirrhosis of the liver, the scourge of heavy drinkers. Brian didn't fit that frame: "I only drink very moderately." The obvious question to ask this man of the cloth is whether his faith sustained him through his illness and transplant?

"I am a person of faith, my orientation is focusing on 'faith' as opposed to 'belief' so I can live agnostically about life beyond the grave. I am totally unconcerned about it and have no particular expectation of it. I am not motivated by beliefs so much as living with faith in the here and now."

Brian was in the 5th form (Year 11) when he felt the first stirrings of interest in becoming a minister, but 'dithered' until he was 21.

"I think what I had was a somewhat romantic idea of what ministry meant."

He looked for an alternative career, choosing banking.

"I wouldn't say I was called to the ministry, how you interpret calling is up to the individual. For me a career change happened to be the church."

Six years study preceded his ordination at Wellington's Taranaki St Methodist Church; Te Kuiti was his first parish, he met his wife Judith "socialising" in the King Country's 'capital'. Brian's done the rounds of North and South Island parishes, spent time with the Christchurch Central Mission, in Tokoroa, Auckland and Wellington, where he also served as hospital chaplain.

A house always came with the job but in their 40s the Eagles' realised the need to think ahead to retirement and a home of their own.

"We liked Rotorua, used to come across a lot in our Tokoroa days."

They bought in Hannah's Bay, settling after Brian completed a term as field worker with the Conference of Churches of Aotearoa, continuing his part-time position as an enabling team member of Te Taha Maori of the Methodist church. A year after his transplant (it took him 12 months to recuperate) he was appointed to lead Rotorua's Bainbridge Church, remaining more than nine years.

There he formed a close bond with former donor organ recipient, the late Trevor Kenny
(Our People, July 7, 2009), who'd received a new set of lungs. Post Bainbridge, the Eagles spent two years in the UK, Brian overseeing a Norfolk parish of 32
churches.

Our conversation turns to a subject that couldn't be more topical-refugees.

While attached to Auckland's Balmoral- Roskill parish Brian fought many battles on behalf of Pacific Islanders forced, he says, by bureaucracy to become overstayers.

"In effect they were refugees, decent people with no criminal backgrounds who'd come here for a better life, their children's education, yet the government wasn't interested in retaining them despite New Zealand having the capacity to take them, just as it does the current refugees fleeing oppressive regimes, many are hugely talented, we certainly need a more open-door policy."

Politics fascinate Brian.

While in Auckland he stood for the Mt Eden Borough Council, dipping out by one vote.

"I saw standing as an extension of community-related ministry."

He's passed his political bent on-one of his sons is a Wellington city councillor.

In March Brian was selected as one of three community representatives on the Rotorua Lakes Council's Representational Review Working Party -Your Choice.

"A further awakening for me, discovering how this district's communities of interest want the council to be fairly shaped."

We can't let him out of our clutches without further comment on that replacement liver of his: "I was told the transplant was for the quality, not the quantity of life, an extra five years would have been a bonus, it's now 16; life's fabulous."

BRIAN EAGLE
- Born: Levin, 1944.
-Education: Poroutawhao Primary,
Horowhenua High, Trinity College,
Auckland.
- Family: Wife Judith, two sons, two daughters, two grandsons, granddaughter.
- Interests: "I was very sports oriented in my earlier years", jigsaw puzzles, reading (predominantly theological and political), politics, still takes occasional services, "walking my sight-impaired neighbour's guide dog".
- On his life: "I enjoy life, value it, I live life with faith in life."
- Personal philosophy: "Get on with living."