PARKVILLE, Mo. — Almost a year after the first living liver transplant in Kansas, the recipient is celebrating a new lease on life following a second surgery.
He also is expressing deep gratitude for his donor's life-changing generosity.
Brandon Morrison’s liver disease diagnosis came with uncertainties.
“I thought, well… am I going to make it for a year, you know?" Morrison said. "Am I going to be here for Christmas or what’s going to happen?”
He learned he needed a liver transplant.
“I was shocked, as anyone would be,” he said.
“Just waiting and waiting, and at the same time, knowing that you’re not going to get one anytime soon," Morrison said.
He almost lost hope of getting a liver.
But he found a liver at a new University of Kansas Health System program where doctors were ready to perform the first living liver transplant in Kansas.
“I’m thinking to myself, 'I can’t ask somebody to do something like that,"' Morrison said.
Marina Tosi, a family friend, volunteered to help.
“I was like, 'Why not?"' when she remembered what went through her mind when she saw Morrison’s wife’s Facebook post about his need.
“A lot of my family, a lot of my close friends here were like, ‘I would never do that. I could never do that,"' Tosi said. "And that just kind of reassured me that I was doing the right thing.”
She believed in the process even while knowing it was a complex surgery.
“If you go someplace and they’ve done a thousand of them, you’re like, ‘OK, well, that makes me feel better."' "But if you just sit there and say, ‘Hey, you’re going to be our first one,"' you need to know that," Tosi said.
Transplant Surgeon Dr. Clay King said Tosi took the leap of fatith with them.
King said performing a living donor transplant is more challenging than doing two transplants with deceased donors.
"We are taking a person in the operating room that day for a complex operation and that person doesn't need that operation," King said. "And so, ensuring every checkpoint is for safety is for the donor."
According to King, the number of livers from deceased donors available in the area decreased over the years because of new organ allocation policies.
"A lot of our patients sit on the list with not much of a chance of obtaining a deceased donor organ," King said.
Since then, a similar surgery was performed.
“I feel nothing but gratitud, deep gratitude, to be able to do that for someone," Tosi said. "And you know, I just get goosebumps talking about it."
After a second surgery, Morrison feels like a new person.
“She gave me a new life,” he said. “There are really no words to express the gratitude I have for what she has done.”
King said the surgery and outcome are moving and motivating for them.
“What if I needed someone?," Tosi said. "It would be nice to have someone do what I did.”
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KSHB 41 reporter Fernanda Silva covers stories in the Northland. She also focuses on issues surrounding immigration. Share your story idea with Fernanda.
