Parminder Ghuman hasn’t been missing many phone calls lately. He can’t risk it — a stranger might be on the other end willing to donate part of their liver to his son. “My phone is my best friend right now,” Ghuman recently told The Baltimore Sun, after picking up a call after a single ring.
Ghuman’s son, Harvir Ghuman, is a 21-year-old rising senior at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he studies mechanical engineering. He grew up in Severn, where his parents still live, and likes playing soccer with his friends, being outdoors and watching basketball — his team used to be the Cleveland Cavaliers, but now he just watches for fun. He’s also one of nearly 10,500 Americans waiting for a liver transplant .
In the world of organ donation — where 17 people die every day waiting for a transplant — the sickest in line are prioritized when an organ from a deceased donor becomes available. People waiting for a liver are given a score from 6 to 40 that corresponds with their level of need, with 40 reserved for the most gravely ill patients. Harvir, whose liver isn’t actively failing, but could develop cancer because of a rare congenital disorder, has a 27 on that scale.
He’s a patient at Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Liver Transplant Program, where upward of 400 people could be waiting for a transplant on a given day, said Dr. Andrew Cameron, director of liver transplantation at Hopkins and Harvir’s doctor. While the sickest patients might have to w.