University Hospital took part in the largest liver transplant chain in U.S. history and possibly the world conducting seven liver transplants over the last few weeks.<\/p>\n
Today the patients got to meet the donors who saved their lives. Fourteen people are now connected after Robert McDonald, an altruistic man who wanted to donate a piece of his liver in honor of a friend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was elated that it wasn\u2019t just one person that I was helping,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cIt was multiple people. I would\u2019ve done it for one person, but it was cool that my non-directive donation got a lot of people off the list.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDonald donated part of his liver with no strings attached. Six other people donated to save their loved ones.<\/p>\n
Lindsay Cardenas tried to donate part of her liver to her mother Norma who was diagnosed with stage 4 liver disease. Unfortunately, she wasn\u2019t a match for her mom, but University Hospital gave her a chance to still save her mother through their Seven-Pair Living Donor Transplant Exchange.<\/p>\n
Part of Lindsay\u2019s liver would be donated to another recipient that was a match. In exchange, another donor\u2019s liver would be donated to her mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt like I was saving the most important person in my life,\u201d Cardenas said. \u201cIt was an easy decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today each liver recipient met their life-saving donor. Lindsay\u2019s liver was donated to Miguel\u2019s father who in turn donated to Regina. When Tana Lusty\u2019s liver was too small to donate to her father Jody she said she was overjoyed to learn her liver was just the right fit for Norma.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see myself in her,\u201d Lusty said. \u201cA lot of the mannerisms, I see myself. I think this was something that was put in motion way before I ever had a clue. Our paths were intended to cross.:<\/p>\n
All fourteen, now apart of a life-saving mission made possible by seven selfless donors and doctors at University Hospital.<\/p>\n
Patients can often wait years for a transplant. The living donor transplant exchange greatly reduces that time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"University Hospital took part in the largest liver transplant chain in U.S. history and possibly the world conducting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-245349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-san-antonio","9":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","10":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}