Colorado college student looks to pay it forward after liver donation
You could say a miracle happened for Quinn Hanrahan of Steamboat Springs, a college student who had been on a liver transplant waitlist for three days when a donor came through for her. At age 14, doctors noticed her body had started to attack her healthy liver and they couldn't stop it.
"Autoimmune hepatitis, essentially where my immune system attacks my liver cells," Hanrahan explained. "I spent a lot of time home, sick, but my friends and family really helped me deal with it."
Her sister was in the process of becoming a living donor for her when that miracle happened.
"She had just gotten off the phone with the people who were scheduling her evaluation, the final step to becoming my living donor ... three minutes later we got the call that they had my liver."
Dr. Megan Adams, a transplant surgeon at Children's Hospital of Colorado who worked with Hanrahan said she was caught off guard by the timing of everything herself, as she discussed with a college if this was the real deal.
"She was like, 'are you sure? Like, you must be mistaken,' and I was like, 'no, I swear, I don't know how this happened, but here we are,''' Adams said. "You know, of course, we jumped on it and we did the transplant."
That liver comes from a horrible situation, a silver lining to an otherwise terrible tragedy.
Someone around her age and who would be a match for her liver passed away, but because they were a donor Hanrahan was about to get her life back, thanks to their gift.
"It is really hard to come up with the words to describe how grateful you are for something like that," Hanrahan said, explaining how she's working on the exact right thing to say to her donor's family. "It has taken time for me to form my letter."
But the thankfulness in her voice is clear; that donor saved her life, and she knows that.
Her luck in finding a donor that quickly is also not lost on her. She said she is looking to pursue studies that could directly help people like her in the future, now that she has one to plan on.
"I would love to study the mind-body connection and how stress can create diseases in the body, but how you can also heal yourself using your mind and healing your mental health," Hanrahan said.
"I am trying to take every opportunity that I can for myself but also to honor my donor."
Adams could not be more proud of her patient... nor can she believe how smoothly her recovery has been.
"We have kids that are far sicker all the time that are, you know, in the hospital, in the ICU, waiting for organs," Adams said. "They have more complications, and it really kind of speaks to the organ shortage from a national standpoint and sometimes the inequity of access to organs."
That's why, if you're reading this story, it's worth asking you to take a second and make sure you are signed up for organ donation, or even living donation as well. Livers are special as you can give someone your own, and then regrow yours back to a healthy size, like a lizard regrows an arm!
"Most livers will grow back to about 80% of their original volume within six to eight weeks, which is super cool to think about," Adams said, smiling. "It's the only organ in the body that actually regenerates itself and both where it was removed from and where it's put into"
Here's where you can check out if you are right for Liver Donation, and here's where to register to become an organ donor in Colorado.
"You might not think that it's doing a whole lot, but it really is a potential life saved if you're a registered organ donor," Adams explained. "I would also say in terms of being a living donor, if it's something that has ever crossed your mind or pique your interest, it's worth going and being evaluated to be a living donor."
