Over the years, there have been countless jokes about the antagonism between a man and his mother-in-law, and even more about the vagaries of married life. Mike White, a married father of two daughters, has a few of his own.

“Marriage is a three-ring circus,” he quips. “The engagement ring, the wedding ring and the suffer-ring.”

Yet, when it truly mattered, his compassion and commitment to family came to the fore when he donated part of his liver to save the life of his mother-in-law, Laura Field.

His story is just part of a saga where two life-threatening liver ailments went up against the strength of a family – and a responsive, compassionate community – and got their collective butts kicked.

For three years, Laura Field had been on the waiting list at Toronto General Hospital for a liver transplant. She was suffering from encepalopothy, a side effect of liver failure, which was causing her to swell with toxic poison that had to be drained at least every two weeks with a needle.

Mike and Michelle White and Laura Field. Inset, Bill Field. Poisonous gases were also making their way to her brain; causing memory loss, confusion, disorientation and nausea.

Her husband, Bill Field, took early retirement from the City of North York to care for her. He, too, was recently struck by a serious liver infection that had him in critical condition in hospital for three weeks.

Fortunately, he is now back

home in Aurora and on the road to recovery.

Late last year, however, Laura was in a position that was far more dire. She had deteriorated to the point where her life was in danger and her daughter, Michelle White, wrote a letter to the Citizen in December that was essentially a plea for help.

And readers responded. “I couldn’t believe it,” Ms. White recalls. “We got eight calls from people. When people read about things like this, they want to talk to you, touch base, do what they can.”

The most memorable communication came from a woman named Velvet. To this day, Michelle does not know her last name. Nevertheless, she feels Velvet provided the information that that took a nearly hopeless situation and turned the tide.

Laura had a relatively rare A-positive blood type and there did not appear to be any- one who could come forward as a compatible donor.

A cousin of the family from Nova Scotia had gone through a battery of tests and it appeared she could help. Yet, one final test revealed she had a growth on her own kidney that prevented her from being a donor. She returned home grievously disappointed.

When all seemed lost, Velvet called and informed Ms. White that O-positive was the universal blood type and someone with such blood could very well serve the need.

The compatible donor was living in her own house. It was her husband, and he stepped up to the plate. “I did it for the love of family,” he says.

The operation in February was a success.

Now that certain tragedy is turning into one of the feel-good stories of the year, Michelle wonders if emotion, as well as liver tissue, was transferred between Mike and Laura. “Mike was always loud and my mom was the calm one,” she says. “Now, my mom is more feisty and Mike is calmer.”

“She’s got my Irish in her,” Mike comments.

Perhaps, it’s all for the better since Laura is now busy helping Bill, who is three to four months away from full recovery.

Mike and Laura have two daughters. Taylor is nine and Jayme is three and her grandmother has been ill since she was born. “The saddest part of this illness for my mom is that she has not gotten a chance to bond with Jayme,” says Michelle.

“Grandma now has a second chance with her grandchildren,” points out Mike. to friends Ivy Tait and Linda Newman, who were on hand to take care of the kids during the trying times.

Being the donor has been no picnic for Mike, who says the ordeal was one of the most physically painful he’s ever been through. Still, he doesn’t appear to have any regrets.

“I like my mother-inlaw,” he explains. “I like my mother-in-law a lot.”