A father's gift to his baby: life

Michael Saben Sr. says he was never planning to become an organ donor. But when his infant daughter, Sarah, lay dying in a Boston hospital last spring, he put aside his fears and gave up part of his liver to save her life.

Today Sarah is a thriving 17-month-old on the verge of taking her first steps, a childhood milestone her family feared they would never see. The elder Saben has also recovered from surgery that removed about a quarter of his liver, which was transplanted into little Sarah's body the same day last May, in back-to-back operations that lasted about 14 hours.

''I can't think of any situation in which I would have done it," said Saben of donating an organ. ''But I'm a believer now. You see the results, and how can you not believe?" he said, holding Sarah after a checkup at Mass. General.

The experience has transformed him so fully, in fact, that the father of three plans to put aside another fear -- this time, of public speaking -- when he shares his family's story at the Anthony Picarello Foundation's annual fund-raiser at Suffolk Downs Thursday night.

''My knees started knocking about two weeks ago," said Saben, whose family received a ''Piece of Mind Fund" grant from the Picarello Foundation last year.

The fund provides cash grants to families with loved-ones awaiting organ transplants. The money often goes to pay rent or mortgage payments, gas, and other bills that tend to pile up when a family member becomes seriously ill.

Ruth and Anthony ''Skip" Picarello Sr. began raising money for the cause after their son Anthony received an emergency liver transplant that saved his life in February 2000. They have raised more than $100,000 for the American Liver Foundation and the New England Organ Bank.

More than 5,000 liver transplants are performed each year in the United States, according to the United Network of Organ Sharing. But many more critically ill people die because of a shortage of donors. According to the Picarello Foundation, 17 people die every day while awaiting a new liver, while every 13 minutes a new name is added to the national waiting list.

Two years ago, the Picarellos added the Piece of Mind Fund to provide more direct help to families struggling to stay afloat financially while their loved ones await transplants.

''We wanted to do more than just an annual fund-raiser," Skip Picarello explained. ''We want people to know that we care even if we don't know them. It's a love circle as well."

Saben said the grant helped pay bills, buy gasoline for the 230-mile round-trip journeys between their Claremont, N.H., home and Massachusetts General Hospital, and much more. Saben said his family has been overwhelmed with the support they have received from all sorts of people, even their auto dealership, which serviced the two family minivans for free last year after learning of their ordeal. Sarah will have to eat healthy foods, abstain from alcohol, and take medication for the rest of her life to make sure her body doesn't reject the liver, but should otherwise lead a relatively normal life, said her doctor, Martin Hertl. Hertl, who led the transplant team last year, said she was born with biliary atresia, a disease that was destroying her liver and would have killed her if her father hadn't stepped forward when no other match was available.

''She was so sick. He saved her life," said Hertl.

For more information about the Picarello Foundation, call 617-569-4621 or visit online at www.ap-foundation.org.