If you drove by Amy and Dan Witzigreuter's Lakewood home last summer, you may have smiled at eight-year-old Eve, six-year-old Luke and two-year-old Paul bouncing gleefully on their trampoline. But the scene was more than charming: It was downright miraculous. In his short life, Paul has endured countless medical ailments—and a liver transplant.
"He has come such a long way," says Amy. "He plays, he likes to be outside, and he learned to ride a tricycle this summer. We finally feel like his health problems aren't so bad." Paul's troubles began immediately following his birth, when he was jaundiced. But it wasn't typical newborn jaundice causing his skin to yellow.
A series of tests at the Cleveland Clinic revealed that Paul did not have a gall bladder and his kidneys were small, diseased and full of cysts. Doctors said he would eventually need a kidney transplant. A couple weeks later, Paul underwent a liver biopsy at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. He was diagnosed with biliary atresia: His bile ducts were blocked, affecting the flow of bile from his liver. Paul also needed a liver transplant.
"He was totally yellow, he had a huge belly, and he had no energy," says Amy. "He would smile, but he was so uncomfortable. We knew it was a matter of keeping him well and getting him bigger until a donor was found." But gaining weight was not easy for Paul with his diseased liver and kidneys. To make matters worse, he was hospitalized with the rotavirus at four months, becoming dehydrated and septic.
"At some point we learned about living donation and knew we had to consider it," recalls Amy. "We just didn't know how sick Paul was going to get before a donor was found." Both Dan and Amy were eligible, but surgeons recommended Amy as the donor because she was smaller. In September 2005, when Paul was eight months old and only 16 pounds, he received a 5.5 ounce lobe of his mother's liver.
After the surgery, Amy recovered beautifully. Her liver functions returned to normal within a few days, and she even ran a 5k race two weeks later. Things went less smoothly for Paul, who had a bout of acute rejection five days after transplantation, then contracted rotavirus, colingitis and RSV during the following year. In March 2007, Paul began receiving supplemental immunoglobulin treatments. Finally, says Amy, his health improved dramatically.
"His medical fragility is gone," she says. "There was a time—a long time—when everyday was life and death. It's not like that anymore." With his kidneys functioning at 50 percent, Paul will likely need a kidney transplant within a few years. But now he eats normally, plays with his brother and sister and works with tutors to catch up with his peers developmentally.
After this life-altering experience, Amy decided to volunteer with LifeBanc, northeast Ohio's organ procurement and tissue recovery agency. She's a puppeteer for its Kids on the Block® Gift of Life Puppet program, which teaches third through sixth graders about transplantation.
She also encourages people to consider living donation. "It's not that difficult. I would do it again," she says. And not just for her son, who is unable to receive one of her kidneys. "I would donate a kidney to someone because I know what it meant to our family," says Amy. It meant the world.
Currently, nearly 100,000 men, women and children in the United States and thousands in Ohio are waiting for a life-saving transplant. You can become a registered organ donor right now or by saying “yes” when renewing your driver license or state ID at the BMV.