Stull, who is usually a very private person, decided to publicly discuss his health crisis to raise awareness about the need for living donors who would be willing to donate part of their liver so that others can live. The retired CEO thought he had that chance to live. After being placed on a transplantation waiting list at Denver-based UC Health, he got a call at the end of April that a liver was available. He flew to the hospital where the staff prepped and wheeled him into the surgery room when doctors told him the crushing news that the liver had gone bad and there was nothing they could do.

Paul Stull

"I'm not expecting people to immediately come forward, though it is likely there are people who feel passionately about organ donation, but they may not be aware that they can do it while they are still alive," Stull said. "They [surgeons] take a piece of the liver and they transplant it. And the liver is actually the only organ in the body that regenerates itself. So the organ grows back in the donor, and it grows in my body as well. So my goal was really just to spread the word so that more people can tell other people. And even if they aren't a match for me, maybe they'd be a match for somebody else, and I would be very pleased for somebody else to get another chance."

Anyone interested in learning more about becoming a living donor can visit uchealthlivingdonor.org.

According to UC Health, it conducted the first liver transplant in the world in 1967. Since then, the hospital said it has performed thousands of liver transplants in adults and children from all over the nation. UC Health reported it also performed the first adult living liver transplant in 1997.

Most U.S. donated livers come from deceased donors, while a smaller number of transplants are performed using living donors, according to the American Liver Foundation in West Orange, N.J. There are more than 14,000 persons in the U.S. on the waiting list for a liver transplant. Although 8,000 liver transplant surgeries are performed annually, ALF said there are too few deceased donor livers and living donors, which means many people die while waiting for a liver transplant.

Living liver donations reduce wait time – often by years – allowing someone to get this lifesaving operation when they need it. What's more, a living-donor liver transplant typically results in quicker recovery time and improved long-term outcome, according to ALF. In addition, a living donation enables donors, the recipients and caregivers to plan in advance of the operation, and it can save another life by allowing the next person on the waiting list to receive a donor liver transplant.

Until he was diagnosed, Stull was also planning to help raise $2 million to support the New Mexico Credit Union's Connected Academy, which provides education to the patients at University of Mexico Children's Hospital with an accredited full-time teacher at the Mimbres School – a state-accredited, year-round elementary and high school that operates in a hospital setting. This program allows patients to continue their education in a safe setting while learning at their own pace.

The Connected Academy is sponsored by the Association of New Mexico Credit Unions, which Stull is enormously proud of because it enables children to continue their education and, more importantly, gives them hope for their future.

Every day, Stull consumes about 15 to 20 prescription pills in hopes that it will help him live a little longer beyond the year that doctors said he would live. Because the end-stage liver disease makes him tired, he spends much of his time napping, though he does some daily exercise because it could help him recover quicker if he gets a new liver.

Hopefully, that day will come.