Nevada couple’s love story a matter of the heart _ and liver

Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2002 | 6:58 a.m.

LAS VEGAS - When Jess Coleman said "I do" to Nicole Munda in May, he didn't know that besides giving her his heart, he'd be giving her a piece of his liver.

Doctors say their one-in-a.m.illion love story is an even rarer success story in the world of organ transplants.

They knew each other growing up in Carlin, and even went on a group rafting trip when Munda was 19. Coleman was six years older. He felt a spark, but Munda didn't.

Ten years later, in 2001, they found themselves in adjacent seats in a crowd of 125,000 at a NASCAR race in Phoenix.

They married May 4, and now live in Henderson.

A week later, Nicole, who had the rare liver disease primary sclerosing cholangitis - the ailment that killed pro football star Walter Payton - was at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz., in grave need of a liver.

Doctors decided to try a relatively new procedure called a live donor transplant, in which a healthy person with the same blood type and other matching factors gives up 60 percent of his liver to an afflicted person.

Nicole's mother and her two sisters weren't suitable donors. But, defying the odds, Jess turned out to be a perfect match.

On July 3, Nicole Coleman became the 15th live donor liver recipient, and the Colemans became the first spousal liver donor/recipient in the history of the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale. Dr. David Mulligan performed the surgery.

Despite the growing success of live donor transplants, doctors say it won't be enough to save the thousands of lives lost each year because people refuse, even in death, to donate their vital organs to save others.

"Each day, 16 people die in the United States because there are no kidneys, hearts, livers and other organs available," said Dr. David Douglas, medical director of liver transplants at the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale. "We prefer cadaveric transplants because with live donor transplants there is risk to the donor - a 1/2 to 1 percent chance they could die."

Jess, a 36-year-old truck driver, former Elko sheriff's deputy and gold miner, said the risk meant nothing to him.

"If I didn't give her part of my liver, she had no chance to live," he said. "There was no way I could live with myself if I just watched her wither away when there was something I could have done."

"With his liver, I also got his stubbornness," said Nicole, a 30-year-old, 12-year resident of southern Nevada. "I never believed in destiny until that day in Phoenix. And, although I felt real close to him before the operation, I feel so much closer to Jess now."

Jess went into their marriage aware that his bride could die from her disease. He found out about it long before their needle-in-a-haystack meeting in Phoenix, because Jess and Nicole's mother, Jan, worked at the same Carlin mine and had carpooled for years.

"When she told me about Nicole's illness, I thought it sucked that a woman so young was afflicted with a fatal disease," Jess said, noting that on a wall of his home was a photo of him with Nicole and several friends from their 1991 rafting trip.

"Every time I looked at that photo, I'd wondered if she was OK."

Then came that fateful meeting in Phoenix.

"When we were sitting next to each other, I said to myself, 'I know this guy from somewhere,' " Nicole said. "When we realized who each other was, Jess looked at me sadly and asked how I was doing, and I knew he knew I had PSC."

Although Nicole was optimistic she would one day survive her ailment, she lived her life day-to-day and stayed away from long-term commitments. But Jess wouldn't let Nicole to slip away again, and the two began a long-range courtship. In February he quit his job in Carlin and moved to Henderson. Three months later, they married.

Nicole contracted PSC in 1998. In November 2001 she was put on a list for a liver transplant, but doctors gave her little hope she would get one.

"In the United States, we have 17,000 people on the list for a liver," Douglas said, noting that there were just 5,000 available last year for cadaveric transplants.

"Because of the shortage, we have turned to live donor transplants. In 1997 only three such operations were performed. Last year, about 400."

Douglas said the liver and skin are the only two human body parts that can regenerate. He said a divided liver gains normal function in both the donor and recipient in a few days, and both livers eventually grow to near-normal size.

Since the operation, Jess has returned to his job at Nevada Compressed Gas, but Nicole can't go back to work for several months.

Every day, Nicole will have to take prescribed medicine to prevent her body from rejecting the liver. The medicine costs her $200 a month with her insurance. Without insurance, the drugs would cost her $3,000 a month.

The Colemans have set up a Wells Fargo Bank account to help defray more than $500,000 in medical costs. It's the Nicole Munda Coleman Transplant Fund. To date, about $5,000 has been raised.

The Colemans, who both carry organ donor cards and urge others to do so, have prospects for a long, happy future together. After a year of recovery, she can even think about having a baby.

"Before the operation, I was real hesitant to discuss the future," Nicole said. "I didn't want to get my hopes up. Now we can talk about things like our next big purchase, having children."

"Growing old," Jess said.

"Yeah," Nicole said with a broad smile. "Growing old."