Justice Williams is like most other teenage boys\u2014obsessed with sports. What sets the 15-year-old apart from is the liver transplant surgery that changed his life in 2025.<\/p>\n
Justice\u2019s transplant journey started with yellow eyes, intense stomach aches, surgeries, gallstones, and hospitalizations almost every two weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went to the Dominican Republic, and when we came back my stomach started hurting again,\u201d Justice said. \u201cI had to get a PICC line and to get nutrition through an IV.\u201d<\/p>\n
What initially seemed manageable quickly became a serious issue. Justice was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC); a rare disease that causes the bile ducts to become inflamed and scarred. This causes bile to build up and can eventually damage the liver.<\/p>\n
The condition kept Justice in the hospital with infections. In January 2025, he and his family were connected to the pediatric liver transplant team at Miami Transplant Institute (MTI), including gastroenterologists\/transplant hepatologists Stefany Hernandez Benabe, MD, and Jessica Hochberg, MD, as well as with Caroline Almy, a nurse practitioner.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things we discovered is that Justice also had autoimmune hepatitis, meaning he had overlap syndrome,\u201d said Dr. Hernandez Benabe. \u201cThe ongoing infections became the main indication that he needed a transplant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice\u2019s overlap syndrome meant that his PSC and autoimmune hepatitis were both present. Due to the severity of his conditions, he was listed for a liver transplant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was very sick,\u201d Almy said. \u201cBut he was always positive and willing to do anything he could from a medical standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n
The call came on August 3, 2025 with Akin Tekin, MD, a liver transplant surgeon at MTI, taking the lead on Justice\u2019s surgery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my mom got the call, she was crying,\u201d Justice said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know how to feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
From the moment he woke up from the procedure, he was ready to sprint through recovery. He doesn\u2019t remember any pain or discomfort but recalls wanting to get back to his normal life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin a week, he was out of the intensive care unit and we were already talking about discharge,\u201d Dr. Hernandez Benabe said. \u201cHe never said no to a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The liver transplant gave Justice his childhood back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m grateful because I get to go back to school and do what I wasn\u2019t allowed to do before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Justice\u2019s doctors said he took his post-transplant recovery seriously.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has such a positive attitude and took a sense of ownership of this journey that we don\u2019t always see in kids his age,\u201d Dr. Hernandez Benabe said. \u201cHis recovery has been great.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
After experiencing much of middle school in and out of the hospital, Justice now gets to start high school without the medical issues that plagued his pre-teen years. He\u2019s been able to travel with family but most importantly,\u2014return to his beloved baseball.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis experience gave me a different level of maturity that I\u2019m grateful for,\u201d Justice said. \u201cWith my family supporting me, I was able to stay positive and reach the light at the end of the tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justice Williams is like most other teenage boys\u2014obsessed with sports. What sets the 15-year-old apart from is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[159870,159879,159875,225,227,226,81965,159885,77392,99765,159877,159873,159882,159871,159881,159867,159886,159872,159868,159880,159869,159878,22353,159876,159884,159874,159887,159883],"class_list":["post-401883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-autoimmune-hepatitis","tag-autoimmune-hepatitis-in-children","tag-childhood-liver-disease","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news","tag-justice-williams","tag-justice-williams-liver-transplant-journey","tag-liver-disease","tag-liver-transplant","tag-liver-transplant-for-teenagers","tag-liver-transplant-recovery","tag-liver-transplant-recovery-in-children","tag-liver-transplant-surgery","tag-miami-pediatric-liver-transplant","tag-miami-transplant-institute","tag-miami-transplant-institute-pediatric-liver-program","tag-pediatric-liver-disease","tag-pediatric-liver-transplant","tag-pediatric-liver-transplant-surgery","tag-primary-sclerosing-cholangitis","tag-primary-sclerosing-cholangitis-symptoms","tag-psc","tag-psc-and-autoimmune-hepatitis","tag-rare-liver-disease-leads-to-transplant","tag-teen-liver-transplant","tag-teen-returns-to-baseball-after-liver-transplant","tag-teenage-liver-transplant-patient-returns-to-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}