01:00 AM EST on Sunday, January 18, 2004

Mike Borges is ready to give a piece of himself to his wife's niece.

Actually, everybody in the family was ready. They all signed on. They all got tested.

In the big white house on Bay Street in Fall River, where many of the family live or have lived, there is a sense of urgency that is getting close to desperation. Somebody has to be found who is willing to do what Mike Borges is willing to do.

On a couch in the apartment she shares with her grandmother, Jacquie Silvia sits with her ever-present oxygen supply and talks of possibilities that seem modest for a 22-year-old woman.

She wants to finish high school, or get her GED. A serious automobile accident in Newport in 1998 took her out of school, and she's never gotten back.

She wants to go to Bristol Community College for two years, then to a technical school to become a computer programmer.

"I just want to finish my life, you know?" she says. "Do things I couldn't do when I was sick. Get married, get a house. But no kids. Definitely no kids."

The problem is, she is sick. She is very sick. She has lived with cystic fibrosis her entire life and it is putting even modest goals in doubt.

She takes 15 medications. She wears a vest that vibrates against her frail body and helps ease the congestion in her lungs. She goes to Massachusetts General Hospital far more often than she would like.

And she tries to claim a life in the face of a disease that imposes terrible limits.

She doesn't get out much. She loves to play pool, but she has yet to find a smokeless pool hall. She's had some jobs, one at a Cumberland Farms. But then she has to go into the hospital and the job ends.

So family members close around her. They take a simple blood test to see whether they might be able to give up a little so she can have a chance. And they are there in the big house on Bay Street to stay close and provide the things that families do.

Sharon Borges, Jacquie's aunt, lives one floor up and has become the researcher. She has learned about a procedure called a lobar lung transplant, which requires two healthy donors to donate a lower lung lobe. It isn't a cure. It just buys time while a lung transplant is pursued. And Borges has found that there is a three-year wait for a transplant.

The tests showed that Mike Borges, Sharon's husband, is the only potential family donor. The compatible blood types are A positive and negative and AB positive and negative.

They are getting the word out any way they can. They are hoping that someone will come forward to give an incredible gift.

"I have done a lot of research into this and found that the donors are typically on their feet in 48 hours and discharged in approximately two weeks," says Sharon Borges.

Their church, Christ Temple in Tiverton, has set up a Jacquie Silvia Fund.

And Joanne Silvia, Jacquie's grandmother, continues to care for the woman she raised since she was a baby.

"Every three months, she has to go to Boston," Joanne says. "I think we've missed only one appointment. And I'd give her therapy -- put her on my lap and pound on her back and sides. Twenty minutes a day. I try to keep her in good health -- good food and her medications."

And so it goes in the house on Bay Street. A family takes on long odds and does the things it has to do to give one of its own every possible chance.

It is a story that reminds us of the wonderful human connection that organ donation makes possible.

It is a story, too, about a family that doesn't have a lot but seems to have everything that matters.

Bob Kerr can be reached by e-mail at bkerr [at] projo.com.