Organ donor saves little girl's life, as Colorado continues to be a home of hope for those needing a liver
While Emma was waiting for a liver back in Texas, her doctors recommended to her parents, Cole & Megan Guyer, that multi-listing might be a good idea in order to help her get one sooner. Emma was suffering from biliary atresia and her liver was essentially killing itself. The Guyers had hope that a surgery could help solve the issue without a new liver, but it didn't take, and so she would need a new one soon.
"If we wait any longer, complications are going to go up," Megan explained. "Then the possibility becomes real of if she's going to be too sick to get that liver."
The donor line they were waiting in was exclusively from deceased donors, so the family was essentially waiting for someone to pass away that would be a match who was also a registered organ donor. Thanks to multi-listing, the family was able to also join the donor list at Children's Hospital Colorado, which has a living donor program as well. The process involves taking smaller pieces of livers from living people which will regrow back to a full organ in the transplant recipient.
It's that living donation program that attracted the Guyers to Colorado in the first place, as it gives Children's Hospital Colorado a leg up on turnarounds.
"We have the shortest waitlist times in the entire country, and we're really proud of that," said Dr. Amy Feldman, the medical director of the Pediatric Liver Transplant Program at Children's Hospital Colorado.
"On average, our children only have to wait about 50 days for a liver transplant," she said. "The national average is about 8 months."
Time can mean all the difference for a little one suffering with liver failure. Infections can become deadly, and permanent developmental symptoms can start to take hold if the child is sick for too long. It's what Emma's parents started to notice, going back to the hospital time after time for her infections while waiting for a liver.
"When we started having those back-to-back every two weeks being admitted for different things, it started getting really hard," Megan explained.
Thankfully, shortly after listing with Children's Hospital Colorado, they were able to find a donor for Emma. She had the transplant and is now on the mend as a happy and healthy little girl.
"I joke that I thought she had energy before transplant," Megan said. "I did not know, now she is all over the place at all times, she never stops, never stops," she said, with a smile on her face.
"Sometimes you don't realize how sick they really were until they're better."
It's a future for Emma that wasn't possible without a selfless donor. Feldman said livers are especially easy to donate, considering they grow back fully from the donor, like nothing was taken in the first place.
"So you get evaluated if you're a good match, you go in, they take 20% of your liver, bring it over to a child here at Children's Colorado," Feldman said. "You recover for a day or two next door and then you go back home knowing that you saved a life.'
Helping connect compassionate people to children in need is a passion for Feldman. She believes there could be no children who are sick in this way if the message is spread wide enough.
"There are 30 to 40 kids every year who die on the liver waitlist," Feldman said. "There are millions to billions of healthy adults in the United States, surely, we should be able to find 40 adults who are willing to give a piece of their liver and we could make this a non-problem."
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