Marathon runner Alec Rampton grateful for organ donation

On April 17, 2009, Alec Rampton was so sick, his wife didn't know if he'd survive the disease that was ravaging his liver.

On April 17, 2010, the 26-year-old ran the Salt Lake City Marathon grateful that a stranger loved life and other people enough to become an organ donor.

While he ran 26.2 miles, his wife, Megan, ran the half marathon in honor of the person who saved Alec and to celebrate a second chance that they wouldn't have had without the generosity and compassion of strangers.

Neither of them dreamed they would have been among the 11,000 runners who participated in the seventhth annual event just a year ago. In fact, Megan Rampton watched her husband go from living a young, healthy, active life to being unable to understand what was going on around him.

It all began in April 2008.

Alec (who happens to be the grandson of former governor Cal Rampton) was working as a commercial mortgage banker and contemplating graduate school at the University of Utah. He started to feel tired, and eventually it got so bad he went to a doctor.

Primary sclerosing cholangitis.

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The young couple was told the disease would eventually get worse, as would the symptoms, including fatigue and a deterioration of mental abilities. Within five to 10 years, he would need a transplant, doctors said.

"It was like a slap in the face," said Megan Rampton. "I just felt sheer terror."

That terror only got worse when just a year later, Alec went from mildly sick to severely ill.

"The first time we went to the G.I. specialists, they took one look at his blood work and at him and said, 'You're going to need a liver, and you're going to need it fast.' I excused myself and had an uncontrollable cry, a meltdown. It was very hard for me."

This was, after all, her husband who'd never had a health issue.

And now, he was fighting for his life. He was waiting for the generosity of strangers in their darkest moments.

The tough thing about organ donation is that it requires someone to decide to give their organs to others before they're really done living. Then they have to die in a manner that their brain dies before their body so the organs are alive and viable.