HOLLAND, Mich. — Scott Bryers is back on the lawn at Fellinlove Farm where he volunteers. It's part of a lakeshore community that has had his back ever since he got sick.
"Back in 2019, I had what is described as spontaneous liver failure, and added with another condition called hepatic encephalopathy, which is when your liver is not processing toxins and stuff in your body as normal. The ammonia in your bloodstream ends up going to your brain, and I ended up going in and out of comas," he said.
Scott's transplant journey began in the Chicago area, where he's originally from. But he felt called to Michigan.
"It felt as if I needed to change my environment, just from a healing standpoint. I went to my summer home in Saugatuck, and I decided that was the best place for me to be. I could be self-sufficient enough, but I had a lot of friends in town in Saugatuck that helped me," he said.
Scott made many trips to the emergency room at the University of Michigan Health-West in Wyoming. He was on the transplant list for three years before someone special came into his life.
Scott finds his "almost donor"
Scott's daughter Colleen took the reigns in the search for Scott's donor. He needed a partial liver from a living donor. If all goes well, livers will regenerate themselves in both the donor and the recipient.
To spread the word, Colleen relied a lot on social media, which she was admittedly not proficient with prior to the search. Nevertheless, she found Kristin Potter from Muskegon.
"Scott's daughter had made a post that she was looking for a donor for her father, and I was just looking at the requirements. You have to be this age, this BMI, this blood type. And I was like check, check, check. Why not? Yeah. Let's just try it," Kristin said.
Kristin was one of around 60 people who were interested in donating part of their liver to Scott. But of those people, she was the only one who was a match for Scott. Kristin went through counseling and meetings with many different medical professionals. Between Christmas and New Year's Eve of 2022, she learned she would be able to move forward with the surgery.
But shortly after that, everything changed.
"It was like 6:30 in the evening and I saw that I got a phone call. And on the voicemail it was 'Surgery is off.' And that was pretty much it. That was the gist of the message from the surgeon. And I was like 'Oh my gosh. What happened? Is he okay? Is he really sick? Did he pass away? I was devastated — absolutely devastated," Kristin said.
Scott's health had taken a turn.
"My condition had worsened to the extent that a partial liver wasn't going to help me. I got kind of depressed at that point, thinking I don't have a lot of time. I don't have a lot of chances to get a donor, because at that point, there had to be a deceased donor that had a viable liver," he said.
"I was really down to my last chance."
Scott's hero was a Michigan-born mother of two
The situation had reached a point of hopelessness for Scott, but Colleen didn't give up.
She turned back to social media, desperate for a donor.
That's when she got in touch with Carol Braun, Bill Clawson and Mary Bauma — the family of a woman named Sarah Clawson who had passed away in Knoxville, Tennessee.
"Sarah fell ill with a with a brain injury. She fell ill and we learned that she wasn't going to recover. And then we learned that she was an organ donor. We did not know that previously. It did not surprise any of us, because she was always giving and outgoing and everything," Bill said.
Sarah's family had been doing a bit of a social media campaign themselves. They reached out to churches and other organizations asking people to spread the word across Sarah's home state.
"Sarah grew up in Michigan, and we all live in Michigan, and I wanted as much of Sarah back in Michigan as as could be. So that's why on our Facebook pages, we were asking for people locally, around where Sarah grew up to give us names of people who needed organs here in Michigan," Carol said.
The family received a list of between 20 and 28 names of people that were close matches. Scott was the only person on that list who needed a liver.
"That fateful day, February 2, 2023, they flew my now my liver, Sarah's liver, from Knoxville, Tennessee to Ann Arbor. And a couple hours later, they were transplanting it into me. And there's a whole series of miracles that happened that made that a reality," Scott said.
"The hardest part of it, I think, is the emotional and mental side of it. What happened with me is that, Sarah's tragedy became my miracle, and it's hard to wrap your head around, to think that you're alive because of somebody else."
In total, Sarah saved five peoples' lives with her organ donations.
Scott's new "extended family"
Hospital staff members couldn't give Sarah's family Scott's name, but because he was the only person on their list who needed a liver, they knew he had received it. And because they had seen Scott's story on social media, they knew he was a volunteer at Fellinlove Farm.
"So we came looking for him — looking for where he was from. We love farms, because we're country people and so we came to see the animals and talked to one of the volunteers and told her who we were and what we were doing here. And she was like, 'Oh, Scott's gonna be so excited!'" Carol said.
Since the transplant, Scott has grown close with Sarah's family.
He's also grown close to his "almost donor" Kristin, who ended up being a match for someone else and saving their life through a partial liver donation.
Kristin is now preparing to donate her kidney to someone who needs it as well.
"We connect on such a different level than I connect with pretty much anybody else. I mean, we've experienced this journey together, and all of the highs and the lows, and just being able to connect with somebody — people that understand it. It's meaningful to know that we are all genuine people out there that just want to help people," Kristin said.
Scott said spending Thanksgiving with his new "extended family" was an unbelievable experience.
"I was struggling emotionally before we had that Thanksgiving together. I was nervous. I didn't know how I would react. But it was really one of the best experiences of my life to be able to do that, and show my appreciation, my love, my gratitude for Sarah's family and also for Kristin's family," he said.
On a mission
Forged by a common bond, Scott and his new "extended family" are working to raise awareness about organ donation and the importance of saving peoples' lives.
Right now, more than 100,000 people are waiting for a life-saving organ transplant. One new person gets added to that list every eight minutes.
Every year 6,000 people pass away waiting for a transplant.
"Anybody that is able to get onto a transplant list is a miracle in itself. To actually get a transplant is really the ultimate miracle," Scott said.
The group has been painting rocks in memory of Sarah and leaving them for people to find and share on social media.
Bill believes Sarah's rocks have been spotted as far away as Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Scott and Colleen have also been working to start a 501(c)3 called "Another Tomorrow - Living Organ Donation Awareness and Education" to spread awareness about organ donation and to help match donors with recipients.
"We hope to have our website completed and be fully operational by winter of 2024. We have said from the beginning that if we are to try and tackle the issue of the lack of awareness surrounding living organ donation and organ donation in general we are going to have to be calculated and take our time to get this done right," Colleen said.
"We have a lot of work to do but, we also have so much motivation to create this awareness. We want to honor all organ donors and we hope we are making Sarah proud. We have so much gratitude for Sarah and her loving family for saying yes to organ donation."
In the meantime, if you'd like to contact the organization, you can email Anothertomorrowinfo@gmail.com.
Colleen also recommends checking the State of Michigan's organ donor information page and the University of Michigan Health's Transplant Center page to learn more about being an organ donor.
Our original story on Scott
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