A Second Chance: Liver Transplant Survivor Reflects on Life, Gratitude, and Hard Work

You never know your time. You have to use it wisely.”

Harvey Sargent

“You never know your time,” said liver transplant survivor Harvey Sargent. ”You have to use it wisely.”

Sargent, who will be 74 on May 28, lives in Mckenzie and currently works full-time for Carroll County Recycling. This coming Labor Day Sargent will celebrate the fifth anniversary of his liver transplant surgery. It’s something that Sargent described as “totally undeserved”.

Sargent said one of the hardest things about it was knowing someone had to die in order for him to receive a liver transplant.

“They don’t tell you who your donor is,” Sargent said. “But my daughter was able to write a statement of thanks to the family. It don’t take the hurt away (for the family of the donor) but it made me feel good knowing she was able to do that”

Sargent said he knew something was off as early as 1994. By 2010 Sargent said he went from 220lbs to 148lbs. “I went quite a few years hurting,” Sargent said. “But I didn’t recognize that’s what it was. I felt like a skeleton to tell you the truth.”

Sargent said he worked in hazardous materials beginning in the 1960s, a time when he said there were little or no regulations. He said he believes that may have contributed to his cancer diagnosis.

“My doctor said I was like a pioneer going from East to West,” Sargent said. “I didn’t know what I was going to run into. Ask too many questions and you’d be down the road”

Sargent said the doctors initially tried chemotherapy and radiation but it unfortunately didn’t help. By June of 2019 Sargent went into liver failure.

Sargent said thanks to the help of his daughter Rebecca Sargent-Dyal he was able to get an appointment with Vanderbilt and get on a waiting list for a transplant.

“What he told me (the doctor) was, your condition will have to get worse in order for us to move you up the list,” Sargent said. “And it did. It was like within a year and a half and I was okay for a transplant.”

Sargent’s transplant was scheduled for Labor Day of 2020, a day which he referred to as his own “labor day”.

“My doctor said “you know you could die with this”,” Sargent said. “I said “you know I know the Lord, and I believe that he saved me for a purpose and that he ain’t gonna turn his back on me”. And to make a long story short, I made it through it.”

Sargent said when he woke up strapped to the bed it was like a scene out of the movie Star Wars. He said there were needles sticking in his neck, his heart and he had a tube running down his throat.

Sargent said when he finally had the tube taken out of his throat the first question he asked was “can I go now?”.

Sargent said his recovery was long and slow but after a little time and lots of prayers he was able to start working again.

“You’ll never get ahead,” Sargent said. “You can only keep up.”

Sargent said he started out by picking up sticks in the yard. Then he started walking down the road. First he said he started with a quarter mile, then half, then a mile and finally got to where he could walk three miles out and three back. That’s when Sargent said he knew he was ready to go back to work.

“I told my kids I was going back to work,” Sargent said. “They didn’t want me to of course. I started out working part time and now I’m up to 40 hours a week.”

Sargent when he left the hospital he was on 15 different pills each day. Now, he said, he only takes three and considers the time he has been given a true blessing.

“No matter what happens to us as individuals there’s always somebody who is worse off,” Sargent said. “Always.”