Key points from today’s guests:

Gary Gray, liver transplant recipient

• Two years ago, Gary was diagnosed with a blockage of his bile ducts, a condition that was destroying his liver. Doctors told Gary he'd need a liver transplant.
• New national transplant rules made it more difficult for Gary to receive a transplant.
• He was very sick from his disease, but his numbers did not reflect his degree of illness, so he fell further on the donation waiting list.

Beth Gray, Gary’s wife

• She was doing research and realized that patients like Gary don’t succeed in getting a liver transplant through the donor list because his score didn’t put him high enough on the list.
• So she and her family took matters into their own hands and began a social media search for a living liver donor.
• They had almost given up when they received a response from a stranger a thousand miles away.
• They are so thankful to Lindsee for her selfless, lifesaving donation.
  
  

Lindsee Wilson, Gary’s living liver donor

• She saw the post, realized she had the same blood type, and thought this was something she should consider.
• She had a series of conversations with Gary and his wife because it required her traveling across the country to come to Kansas for the transplant.
• The recovery was difficult, but she is getting back to running and is proud of the scar.
• She had to change her diet slightly, but it was not too intense.
• Even though she was the donor, she said she as received a lot from this process too.
• Lindsee has been “adopted” as part of Gary’s family and they are eternally grateful for her generosity.

Dr. Ryan Taylor, gastroenterologist, medical director, Liver Transplant Program, The University of Kansas Health System

• Clay was just getting weaker by the day and he was hospitalized more because he was having more serious infections.
• He was having more trouble with his thinking and his mobility and just was getting to the point where he's almost going to be confined to that because he was so weak.
• It's really important to talk to your family about organ donation, whether it's going to impact such a story such as this or just even in the event that there's an emergency in your life.
• Organ donation may be an issue and so it's good for family members to know your beliefs and that you want to help other people if that's something important to you.

Dr. Clay King, transplant surgeon, The University of Kansas Health System

• These are stories that wouldn't happen without living donors.
• Every transplant center has people like Gary that are unlikely to get a transplant before they get too sick, to a point where then they can't get a transplant.
• So we're trying to make sure we have all options available to patients so they don't have to go to the East Coast or travel thousands of miles away and somehow find a donor that'll travel there with them.
• Although it's one organ, the liver really has eight functioning separate units. And so the tricky part is being able to separate those units and continue to make the one that you leave behind function and the one that goes to the recipient function.
• So the liver is essentially kind of like a tree -- if they're a living donor, we need to leave the trunk of the tree behind so it can grow.
• Last year, about 600 of the 10,000 liver transplants were from living donors and we have to increase that number in the United States. We're in the most generous portion of the United States with great patients and then great potential recipients here in Kansas.

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control, The University of Kansas Health System

• The COVID inpatient count is 26 this week, a decrease from 33 last week.
• An urgent CDC health advisory went out last week to doctors and hospitals stating that vaccine rates for COVID flu and RSV need to increase and that providers need to get shots at Arms ASAP.
• There is a large concern because those people most at risk for severe disease and hospitalization still have very low uptake of these vaccines, which we know can significantly reduce your risk of going hospital or going to the ICU.

Tuesday, December 19 at 8 a.m. is the next Morning Medical Update. The holidays can be overwhelming, but don't let them be unsafe. We go over some of the not-so-obvious safety advice from doctors who see the consequences of a carefree Christmastime.

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