Lily officially got her new liver on 1/28/26 from the selfless donation of her auntie Vanessa!
The surgery was pretty long and she was having some blood pressure issues despite 3 bp medications to keep it up. They still had to make sure there was adequate bloodflow in the hepatic arteries, and connect the bile duct to the new liver. So they decided it was safest to close her skin and leave her muscle layers open and let her rest, and go back in the next day 1/29/26.

When we got to her room around 730 pm at night after the first surgery it was pure chaos. There was 5 nurses and doctors just yelling things about medications trying to figure out how to get her calm because the anesthesia was wearing off and she was trying to fight the ventilator. While she was doing that she was breathing super hard and pushing her belly out, which looked scary. It was about two hours of chaos. Then she slept all night!

Thursday 1/29/26 they went back in very early in the morning to finish up. Everything went well and they were able to verify the hepatic arteries had good blood flow, everything was working, connected the bile duct and did a “wash out.” During her first surgery she got a lot of blood products and fluids so she needed a good clean out. They also mentioned that her bowel was pretty scarred together, and that that could be why she was throwing up as much as she was before the transplant, so they cleaned that up as much as possible.

The plan is to go back to the OR Monday 2/2/26 and finish closing her all the way up. They didn’t want ro fully close the muscles because she is pretty inflammed and swollen and they don’t want to put any pressure on her new liver.

Right now all of her labs look great, her bilirubin is normal range for the first time in her life, enzymes are trending down… and today 1/31/26 is her first birthday! We got to bring her big sister and grandparents into the room to wish her a happy birthday 🙂 The nurses helped decorate her room and put up my photo banner outside her room. Everyone stops and stares at her photos and admires how cute she is.

Overall she is doing great for just going through major surgery. We still have some more hoops to get through but we are so so grateful for how things are currently going. ❤️