After diagnosis: Patients, families find or build supportive networks

Yasuda's diagnosis in Florida didn't come with a visit from the pair of volunteers who introduce themselves as John and Dave as they regularly make the rounds of the transplant center at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah. John got his liver transplant around 2001, Dave a few years later. They are hope in human form, ready to answer questions and reminisce about their own recoveries, while proving, no words needed, that life, after transplant, goes on.

Yasuda wishes she'd had that and that there'd been a support group locally. She'd have gone. She wanted one for Gene, her husband. "It's hard on the caregivers," she says. Her kids, now in college, grew up immersed in her illness.

It has been a hard journey and she's developed a pragmatic approach to healthcare. "I'm a particular patient these days," says Yasuda. She won't wait for hours when she has a scheduled appointment, for instance. If it happens much, she'll change doctors. "They're busy. Their time is valuable. But mine's borrowed," she says.