TAMPA, Fla. — When Americans go to get their driver’s license or renew it, they are given the option to become an organ donor.
ABC Action News Anchor Lauren St. Germain spoke with a liver transplant surgeon at Tampa General Hospital about why he is encouraging everyone who can to become a donor. She also sat down with a local woman who said she was given the gift of life.
“Well, it kind of starts back about five years ago. 2019. I was not feeling well. I was really tired all the time,” said Kimberly Toole.
WATCH Local woman given the gift of life through liver transplant
Toole was living in Texas when she got extremely sick.
“Basically, all the organs in my body were shutting down, everything, and they just started attacking everything. [Doctors] told my family, everyone, to come in that I wasn’t going to make it through the week. So all of my family flew in to say their goodbyes,” said Toole.
Against all odds, Toole made it through the following weeks and months. She said most of her organs then started to heal.
“I had cirrhosis of the liver. I was diagnosed in 2019,” said Toole.
She eventually moved to Florida with her now fiancé.
“One night, I had symptoms really bad that Jeff took me to the Tampa General ER, and we told them I had liver cirrhosis. And they looked at everything, and they said, 'Has anybody ever offered you a liver transplant before?' Nobody had because, basically, in Texas, they told me I was going to die before I would have a transplant. So for us, we thought that was off the table,” said Toole.
She continued, “I will never forget the doctors sitting in the room saying, ‘Would you like a new liver?' And I said, yes, where do I sign?”
“She was very sick when she came to our hospital. She was jaundiced, had a lot of issues with fluid build-up in her belly,” said Dr. Vijay Subramanian, a liver transplant surgeon at Tampa General Hospital.
Dr. Subramanian performed Toole’s surgery last year.
“Do you know roughly how many people are on the transplant waitlist at any given day?” asked St. Germain.
“Any given day, there’s over probably 100,000 to 200,000 patients on the national waitlist for a variety of organs. The liver transplant waitlist is somewhere around 80,00 to 90,000 patients, and we are adding patients every year or every day to that waitlist,” said Dr. Subramanian.
“Have you seen that number increase in recent years or stay about the same?” asked St. Germain.
“So, it has been increasing every year. The reason it’s been increasing is more awareness and having more of a community approach to finding our patients with liver disease and the prevalence of liver disease itself in the population is increasing,” said Dr. Vijay Subramanian.
Toole received her donation from a donor who passed away, but people can also receive a liver from a living donor.
“Living donations for liver transplants rely on us being able to take up to 60% to 70% of someone’s healthy liver and donating it to someone else because one of the best things about the liver is it can regenerate so it can grow when you take a portion of it,” said Dr. Subramanian.
Toole told St. Germain she had a complicated recovery, but now she is feeling great and building back her strength. She even went to thank her doctors and hospital staff one year after the transplant.
“What is that like for you to see, as the doctor who performed the surgery, to see that huge turnaround?” asked St. Germain.
“I think it is extremely gratifying. These are often high stakes and high-risk operations we do on patients that are very sick,” said Dr. Subramanian.
“It’s the greatest thing that someone can tell you is that I can save your life,” said Toole.
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