Patient Story - Small intestine recipient - Battalion chief paul mcneel

When they dial 911, they’re having the worst day in their life. Everything on a fire ground is hectic in the first two or three minutes and it’s my job to organize the firefighters, get the companies in the right place, and bring that destructive force under control, so that we can do what we’re expected to do for the citizens. I’m Paul McNeel. In May 2009 I had a small intestine transplant at Georgetown University Hospital. March of 1996 I was having abdominal pain. My wife took me to the local emergency room and they had to remove my entire small intestine, and from that point forward I started down the road of TPN and did that for 13 years until I continuously had infections, and, eventually, my GI doc told me one of these little bugs is gonna kill you and we won’t have an antibiotic to kill it. And I didn’t want to die that way. And we found Georgetown University, and Georgetown did more transplants. They were having a better success rates than the other hospitals in the country. And on May 9th I got my transplant. The transplant went very well. Doctor Fishbein and Doctor Matsumoto were my surgeons. I think they did what very few people in the country can do, to give me a small intestine and allow me to become a whole person again. Georgetown University makes it as simple as possible for the patient. The transplant staff, the doctors, the nurses, everybody is worried about your wellbeing and that you’re making the right steps, progressive steps, to become whole and healthy again. I now live normally. I don’t have a port in my chest, foreign objects in my body. Now, I have a small intestine. I get the nutrition from the food I eat the same as you. The transplant has given me a new lease on life.