a day ago
Pueblo dad saves daughter with liver donation
(PUEBLO, Colo.) — A local dad is preparing to spend his first Father's Day with his daughter after giving her the gift of a lifetime.
The concerns for his daughter Mackenzie's health began to pop up just days after she was born.
'If she didn't have that weird spray tan color, we would have never known she was sick,' said Jennah Marsh, Mackenzie's mother.
Doctors discovered that Mackenzie had jaundice, which can be found in newborn babies. When bilirubin, a yellowish pigment that's a byproduct of the normal breakdown of red blood cells, builds up in the blood, it causes the skin or eyes to turn yellow. Doctors worked on clearing it, but it didn't work.
Not long after, Mackenzie was sent to the Pediatric Liver Transplant Program at Children's Hospital Colorado. There, doctors diagnosed her with biliary atresia.
'It causes there to be damage to the bile ducts that are the tubing that go throughout the liver, and without doing anything, that is a disease that is uniformly fatal,' said Amy Feldman, the Medical Director of the Liver Transplant Program at Children's Hospital Colorado.
Doctors then proceeded to try a Kasai procedure to try and clear the blockage in her liver, but it didn't work either. Mackenzie's last option was to get a complete liver transplant. Children across the country can wait up to eight months for a new liver, but for Mackenzie, there was another option in looking at a living donor liver transplant.
'The amazing thing about the liver is that it can regenerate itself. So you can take a small little piece out of a living person like you or me, just 20% and put it into a baby like Mackenzie,' Feldman said.
After running tests, the type of liver Mackenzie needed happened to match her father's type.
'That really sped up the process,' Marsh said.
So, on February 18, Mackenzie got her new liver courtesy of her dad. The two have been recovering at home since.
'I just have a little foreign scar where… they had to open her up. So, my recovery was a little bit faster,' Marsh said.
Mackenzie is not alone, as Children's Hospital Colorado says it has more than 15 kids waiting for a kidney or liver transplant that could save their life. Doctors are looking for more donors to help save lives.
Click here to learn more about how you can sign up to be an active donor.
Feldman says a living donor transplant is not as utilized as some might think.
'Of all the pediatric liver transplants that are done across the United States in the year, only about 15% of those come from living donors,' Feldman said.
But this procedure worked for Mackenzie and saved her life. She is now healthy and smiling as the Marshes get ready to celebrate their first Father's Day together.
'Even with everything we went through, becoming a first-time father is awesome, I couldn't be happier,' Marsh said.
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