INDIANAPOLIS — Did you know you can donate some of your organs, like your liver and kidney, while you’re still alive?
April is National Donate Life Month. As part of that, WRTV is highlighting how organ donation has improved the quality of life for a pair of best friends in Decatur County.
Right now, there are more than 10,000 people waiting for a liver transplant, and a new patient is added every 10 minutes.
Everyday 17 people die while on that list.
Thanks to live organ donation, Sara Schwering isn’t waiting anymore.
“Chronic fatigue and itching,” Schwering described her symptoms.
For nine years Schwering has been dealing with an auto immune disease attacking her liver, impacting her everyday life.
“It's like an internal itch so it didn't matter how much I scratched it was always itchy,” Schwering said.
After several test, on her 33rd birthday Schwering’s doctors at IU Health University Hospital decided she was a good candidate for a liver transplant, but she would require a living donor.
In November 2021 the mother of two put the call out on Facebook, asking someone to give a piece of themselves to help change her life.
“You know people out there care about you but you really don't realize how much you know somebody's willing to do for you so it's it was an amazing feeling,” Schwering said.
“I am the liver,” Amelia Fisse joked 10 weeks after the transplant.
Fisse answered the call and qualified to donate a piece of herself to her longtime friend.
“I was grateful that I was just healthy enough to be able to keep going on to the next step and when I got to that final step, I was like OK here we go I'm going to do it,” Fisse said.
On February 16, the liver transplant happened, Schwering woke up feeling brand new.
“I wasn't itchy anymore, and that was like the main thought. I told my mom I said, ‘if I wake up and I'm not itchy everything will be worth it,’ because it just drove me crazy. So waking up not being itchy was amazing and then my skin tone, my eyes had been yellow from jaundice just seeing those difference and then I just have a lot more energy. I'm not tired all the time. I don't nap half the day like I was. So, it's just it it's amazing to feel healthy when you haven’t in so long,” Schwering said.
“To see people, make that change from being fatigued and tired and sick to really being able to go back to doing the things that they love to do. To go back to being a mother, to go back to work and so that is really the best part of the work that we do here,” Dr. Lauren Nephew with IU Health University Hospital said.
Nephew said becoming a living donor is easy and when it comes to your liver, it’s not a permanent loss.
“If you give a piece of your liver within about three months or so you will have a full-size liver and so it's one of the only organs in the body that generates and so this is the gift that you can give but get something back,” Nephew said.
Now 10 weeks post-transplant both women hope you’ll consider donating life.
“I think it's definitely worth it and if you are able to help it's a rewarding experience,” Fisse said.
“I think it's the greatest gift you can ever give to anybody,” Schwering said. "She saved my life.”
According to organdonor.gov only 3 in 1,000 people die in a way that allows for deceased organ donation, that’s why living donors are so important.
If you want to learn more about signing up to be a living organ donor visit Donate Life Indiana.
