HOUSTON - When it opened in 2013, the founders of Nora's Home wondered if it would be fully utilized as a home away from home for transplant patients waiting for and recovering from life-saving operations in the Texas Medical Center. Now, as the non-profit records its 10,000th night stay, its 16 rooms are in such high demand that it can only accommodate one out of every five requests received for lodging.
"I am certain that Nora's spirit, and the patients, will make them support this place the way it should be supported because it really does a lot of good," said Dr. Osama Gaber, director of the Houston Methodist J.C. Walter Jr. Transplant Center and co-founder of Nora's Home. He is also Nora's father.
Nora Gaber was 7-years-old when she died in a car crash in 1997. Both of her parents were already involved in transplant medicine. Nora's mother Dr. Lillian Gaber is now a transplant pathologist at Houston Methodist. But at the time they immediately made the difficult choice to donate her organs. Nora saved several lives. And through Nora's Home, first created by the Gabers when they worked in Memphis, and now in its third year in Houston, Nora continues to help transplant patients.
"I want the transplant patients to have a place to call their home," Dr. Gaber said as the facility just south of the Texas Medical Center seeks additional funding to double in size. "Really we were looking for a way to keep her in our lives," he said of Nora.
Hundreds of transplant patients travel to the Medical Center each year from out of the Houston area and from out of state. The nature of transplant surgery, the fragility of transplant patients, and the weeks or months needed for recovery, often requires patients to stay near their chosen transplant center for lengthy periods both before and after surgery. Nora's Home is designed to offer those patients a much less expensive option based only on their ability to pay. Nora's Home is also designed to give transplant patients a home-like atmosphere where they can get the nutritional and emotional support they need and the camaraderie of others going through the same difficult journey.
Francis and Marie LeBlanc from Lafayette, Louisiana are midway through that journey.
"Shocked. Kind of shocked," Francis, 64, said of the cirrhosis diagnosis he received a few years ago. He was shocked because he does not drink alcohol. But the diagnosis that strikes upwards of 200,000 people a year in the U.S. can come from a variety of causes.
"Kind of takes the fight out of you. Kind of takes your dreams away," the life-time auto mechanic said.
"But he was given a Christmas miracle," his wife Marie said. After the liver transplant he and Marie are still living at Nora's Home while he rebuilds his strength.
"It's like an oasis," Francis LeBlanc said of Nora's Home.
"Yes," said Marie. "And it's like a soft place to land in the hardest of times."
As for Nora Gaber, her smiling picture greets you as you walk in the front door. Her smile and her big brown eyes grace the wall of the large living room just inside the entry way. And her impact is never lost on the transplant patients who live here.
"She was a beautiful, beautiful little girl," Marie LeBlanc said. "She's the angel that goes around in all the rooms and is there when you walk in and see that beautiful face and that beautiful smile. It has to make you know that tomorrow's going to be a better day."
"They tell me that and it sends shivers down my spine," Dr. Gaber responded. "It makes me cry."
The grief of a parent never completely goes away. But Dr. Gaber tells a story of a daughter who even at a young age, worried each night if everyone in the world had a roof over their head just like she did. She is offering just that to people now.
"Coming here actually reminds me, and I'm sure reminds Lillian, of Nora and her nature and her story and what she wanted to be and how we think of her. So in a way this is a real healing place for us," said Dr. Gaber.
To learn how you can help Nora's Home continue to be a healing place for transplant patients from all over the country, visit www.norashome.org
