Transcript for the Piece Audio version of StoryCorps: Dr. John and Caroline Bancroft

JB: A little girl had come to the hospital with the sudden onset of
liver failure. She was sitting on her mother's lap at a high school
football game when her mother noticed that her eyes were yellow and she
was acting a little tired. By the time we brought her into the hospital
it was pretty clear that her liver was failing and was not likely to
recover and we began very quickly the process of listing her for
possible transplant.

Seven, eight, nine days went by and there wasn't a donor available. On
the tenth day, when we thought we had a lead on a donor, she had a
sudden worsening. And even as we were trying to make the decision
whether we were going to go ahead with the transplant, her brain
function changed to the point where it was clear we couldn't. There was
little chance that she was going to recover.

So after working with that family every day for ten days, just taking
each, really each hour as it came, I had to talk with them about the
fact that we couldn't go ahead. And as we gathered around her bed, her
parents spontaneously turned to us and said, Well is there any chance
that her organs could help another?

And as it turned out they could. And they wound up donating her
kidneys, her pancreas, her corneas. And later I saw a photo of all the
recipients, and it was one of the most moving photos I've ever seen.
Here was a family that was desperately waiting for a transplant and they
wound up turning around and giving at a time when no one would have
expected it, and wound up touching a number of individuals and really
giving them a new chance at life. That's one of my more memorable days.
And I don't think I had much to do with it.

CB: I always wonder how you move through all of these patients and the
success stories and then the losses, and somehow there seems to be hope.

JB: Yeah. I think there is and it comes in a variety of forms. Children
have such a resilience and bounce back and heal in ways that always
amaze me. And it certainly does hurt when children don't heal or when
they die. I hope those never stop hurting. But to have one of them
turn around and give you a hug around the leg or just smile, can really
change a day.