Live-saving Liver Donation Comes From Total Stranger
A Macomb County man has given a 25-year old Royal Oak woman a new chance at life.
Forty-five year old Robert Cross donated a large portion of his liver to Heather Erickson, a complete stranger who was struggling with a progressive liver disease.
Cross said it was his wife who read about Erickson's story in a blog posted by the young woman's mother. The blog explained how no family members were a blood match for the liver transplant that they needed.
"Then, she looked at me and she said 'Robert, she has [Type] O blood. And, so I asked her what I needed to do," Cross said.
The couple thought of their now 17[year-old daughters, one of whom, years ago, nearly needed an organ transplant.
Erickson's mother set up a dinner with Cross and his wife.
Erickson says it was a nervous occasion.
"It was just a great moment and, you know, I had a lot of concerns just because I felt guilty a little bit , if anything was to happen to him. But he relieved a lot of my stress and a lot of my uneasiness. And I felt, you know, that this was okay and that he was a great person to do this."
Both Cross and Erickson are both doing well -- as is Erickson's new liver, which doctors say is already beginning to grow.
