Doctor races for transplant donors

Terry Box knew he didn't have very long to live when he couldn't ride his bicycle anymore.

The liver-transplant physician for University Health Care became his own doctor when he was diagnosed with a malignant liver tumor in 1999. Despite the risks involved, Box at first decided not to place himself on the transplant list, because he felt there were "patients much more sick" than he was.

"The day I knew I had finally hit the wall was when I was cycling," Box said. "I was usually one of the better riders, and the others left me in the dust."

Within three months, Box had received a liver transplant — a life-saving procedure. Now, the avid cyclist is back in shape and using that love of cycling to share his enthusiasm for liver transplants. Box and seven cyclists will begin the 3,000-mile Race Across America bike ride June 20 in Oceanside, Calif.

Team Donate Life, which has raised a donation of about $20,000 for transplant research and awareness, gained another $100 Monday as University Health Care employees waved goodbye and good luck to one of the two four-member teams that plan to arrive in Indianapolis, Ind., in a little more than a week.

"I have in my pocket one Benjamin Franklin," said Gordon Crabtree, chief financial operator of University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics, as he handed over the $100 bill. "You'd better make it."

Friends and colleagues echoed the well-wishing, sending off Box and fellow cyclists Ray Thomason, Stephen Thompson and Brodie Pollard on their grueling ride where they will go about 20 miles an hour — they hope. Each cyclist will trade off resting and riding, compiling an estimated average of 480 miles per day.

But Thomason, a former colleague of Box and a liver-transplant physician for Intermountain Medical Center, said the grueling ride will be worth it if they can spread awareness of the great need for transplant donors, especially liver donors, since only 6,000 of the average 18,000 patients on the waiting list receive livers.

"More of my patients die than live," Thomason said. "I said goodbye to (Box). I didn't think he would live. He wouldn't put himself on the list originally. He didn't want to take someone else's place on the list."

Box was lucky. The severity of the malignant tumor, which was killing him, helped him receive the necessary transplant.

Now the team members, who will fight sleep deprivation to ride 24 hours a day, will continue training every day and raising money to meet their goal of donating $25,000. The team has raised more than $80,000, but riding across the country and through a variety of terrain, including Death Valley and the Rocky Mountains, costs about $60,000.