“We got showed up by a 19-year-old”: A daughter’s profoundly simple answer to her mother’s illness may one day change organ transplantation and save lives
By Lenny Bernstein Lenny Bernstein Reporter covering health and medicine Email Bio Follow May 11 at 8:27 PM Just 42 years old, Erosalyn Deveza was drifting toward death. Her kidneys were barely functioning. She was constantly exhausted. She had vertigo and vomited frequently. She was tethered to a home dialysis machine for eight hours each night as she slept.
From left: Connie Salinas, Aliana Deveza, Dr. Nancy Ascher, Dr. John Roberts, Annie Simmons and Erosalyn Deveza pose for a photo at UCSF Medical Center. Aliana Deveza donated a portion of her liver to Salinas, whose sister, Simmons, donated a kidney to Deveza’s mother, Erosalyn. “We got showed up by a 19-year-old,” said John Roberts, one of the transplant doctors involved. “She thought of it. I didn’t.
Live donation works for livers too. Unlike most organs, livers grow back. If conditions are right, donors can give one lobe of their liver to a recipient whose liver is failing. Within a few months, both pieces should grow into fully functioning livers inside two different people. “I was actually just looking at other types of transplant procedures that are done,” she recalled. “If I can’t donate my kidney, what other thing could I donate so my mom could get a kidney?”
“I wanted to be a donor for my sister,” said Annie Simmons, 49, a fitness trainer and pet-sitter in Caldwell, Idaho. But her liver was too small for Connie Saragoza de Salinas, who lives in Sacramento.
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