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During her sophomore year at Western, Shelby Hinton received news that would change her life. What seemed like the flu soon turned into pneumonia and then the doctors revealed it was actually liver disease. 

"It totally came out of nowhere," Hinton says. "No one in my family has ever had a liver problem."

During her week in the hospital Hinton recalls the shock and the uncertainty of what it all meant. The mention of a liver transplant only added to the confusion. But with each new bit of information Hinton kept telling herself and others that she was fine, that nothing was wrong. 

"I really didn't think much of it," Hinton says. "I was always a healthy, athletic person; being sick was kind of weird to me."

After a week in the hospital, Hinton returned to Western and dropped a class, since she had missed more than a week. But as Hinton became sicker, she had to step back and tell herself that something really was wrong. 

The summer before her junior year, she began to experience jaundice, a yellowish discoloration of the skin, mucous membranes and the whites of the eyes, caused by elevated levels of bilirubin in the blood. Her doctors continued to warn her to take some time off because she was going to continue to get sicker, but this wasn’t an option in Hinton’s mind.

“Ever since I was a little girl going to college was a dream of mine and I was the first Hinton in my family to go to college,” Hinton says. “I didn’t want to have any sort of road block. I just wanted to keep going.”

But it wasn’t easy.

 “I went from being really social to basically being a hermit,” Hinton says. “I only went to class and that’s it. I didn’t want people to see me or look at my eyes…the way they looked at me, it seemed they were sick just looking at me.”

On several occasions, she says, people went out of their way to follow her and ask what was wrong with her eyes.

Most people asked out of curiosity or concern, Hinton says. But the hardest part was being constantly reminded that she looked the way she did because of a liver disease.

She walked to class with her eyes downcast and would do her best to avoid eye contact with anyone in class, she says, even the professors.

Simple tasks like walking to class became a struggle as she often had to stop and take a rest because her energy was so low. Most days she would sleep for 12 hours or more. Within less than a year, Hinton went from being healthy and active to struggling to stay awake and making it to class every day. 

“It was hard to go from having everything and then going down to a low place,” Hinton says.

Hinton did her best to not allow the disease to affect her academics, but on bad days she told her professors she was sick without going into detail. She was still hesitant to admit her disease because she didn’t want the professors treating her differently, she says. Even with her professors not knowing the full details of her situation, they were understanding and gave her the time she needed, Hinton recalls.

Since her family didn’t live in Bellingham, Hinton says, the friends who stuck by her were a huge support system.

“When you’re 21 years old, you don’t think you’re going to have a liver transplant and practically living in a doctor’s office,” Hinton says. “The support that I had in my family and the few friends that stayed by my side during that time were a huge help.”

Hinton continued to push through school as the wait for a liver transplant continued. As her fear of always being sick mounted, it became harder to stay positive, she says.  

Being on call 24/7 for a liver transplant meant that at any moment she would have to drop everything and go to the hospital at the University of Washington. This happened twice; each time she was ready to go when the doctors informed her the liver wasn’t a match.

“I was so negative and thought that I was going to be sick forever,” Hinton says. “Eighteen people die per day waiting for transplants, so that was always in the back of my mind.”

But the summer before her senior year, Hinton finally got a match for her liver and she successfully had a transplant. While the liver disease was possibly the hardest obstacle she faced as a college student, Hinton is grateful for the transformation she underwent in her character and values.

“I used to be pretty materialistic and thought I knew everything. I thought I knew what the world was like.” Hinton says. “After (the) transplant I became more empathetic towards people and not judge them by the way they look.”

Through all the hardship she endured Hinton continued on with her academics not only because of her childhood dream, but to be the first in her family to earn a college diploma.

“I wanted to make my family proud,” Hinton says.

As graduation approached, Hinton’s father, Greg Hinton, shared her achievements with Western’s President Bruce Shepard in an email.

“Many thanks to your faculty for working with [Shelby],” Greg Hinton wrote. “I am writing this to let you know one student’s journey through your excellent university. Thank you for your time. I couldn’t be more proud of my daughter.”

Shelby Hinton is now graduating from Western with a degree in History after four years and two quarters. She says she now knows that any of her goals can be achieved as long as she’s willing to work hard to get them.