DC Bluegrass Union

Jon Glik: Miracle After Miracle (by Randy Barrett)

Baltimore fiddler Jon Glik is playing once again. Last November, he lay near death in the hospital awaiting a liver transplant. A musical coincidence helped save his life.

Jon is a fiddling legend, both locally and nationally. Over the past 30 years, he's performed and recorded with such luminaries as Del McCoury, David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Peter Rowan and Frank Wakefield. He's also worked with Bob Paisley and the Southern Grass and the Footworks dance ensemble. The quite, self-effacing musician is know best for his fierce, bluesy fiddle style, reminiscent of the first-generation bluegrass masters of the instrument. Glik had no major problems with his health until 2006, when he noticed a strange fullness in his stomach. "I felt stuffed even before I ate," he recalls. The problem: excess fluid in his abdomen. In October of that year, Jon was diagnosed with advanced cirrhosis caused by the hepatitis-C virus. "Before that, I had no idea I had it", he says. A round of antibiotics helped his symptoms and Glik changed his diet and stopped drinking alcohol. "After a while, I started to feel great", he adds.

It didn't last. Over the next few months, the fiddler fell ill with several serious bacterial infections and in August 2007 he was hospitalized for three weeks. Glik's liver function had dropped and his body was unable to clear his blood of metabolic toxins and ammonia.

"Things kept getting worse and I didn't have [health] insurance or anything", Glik says. Worst of all, his failing liver caused painful and prolonged hand cramps. Jon could no longer play the fiddle, his only source of income.

It was clear Glik would soon need a new liver - either from a live donor, or a cadaver. That operation would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars that neither Jon nor his family had on hand.

So his sister, Barbara, and girlfriend, Tracy Eldridge, organized a fundraising campaign that culminated in a benefit concert near Baltimore in October 2007 headlined by the Del McCoury Band and David Grisman. More than 500 supporters jammed the Arcadia Fire Hall and helped raise $23,000.

The fiddler also received letters and get-well notes from friends around the country he hadn't seen in 30 years. "That really buoyed me", he says. But his condition continued to worsen. The buildup of ammonia in Jon's blood impaired his brain function but still he wasn't sick enough to make the top of the liver transplant list. Statistically, two thirds of potential recipients die while waiting for new organs. Numerous friends stepped forward willing to donate part of their livers (which would grow back in four to eight weeks). None was a proper match, and Jon grew weaker.

It was then that a chance acquaintance named Susan Flaherty heard of this plight. Jon had met her at a square dance gig in 2006 when she sat in and sang a few songs with the band. Flaherty is a nurse at the University of Maryland Hospital - and she knows all the transplant surgeons. Soon Glik was admitted to the facility and readied for a new liver under the care of Louis Campos, MD.

"They said don't worry about the money, bring him in", says Barbara Glik. Luckily, at about the same time, her brother became eligible for a Maryland state medical assistance program that covered much of the cost of the operation.

Jon was now at the top of the transplant list. Soon, a car accident in Pennsylvania produced a matching liver and he received the new organ on November 18th. Glik was released from the hospital eight days later and his health began improving. "The first thing I noticed after the operation was I didn't have hand cramps", he recalls.

Still, his recovery has been slow. After two months, Jon was strong enough to hold a fiddle and only in the past few weeks has he begun to play publicly again. He has ups and downs, but Jon is deeply thankful to be alive and performing.

"It's all good, I just gotta keep pushing", Glik says.