COTA for Liviah's Journey

Our Story

Hello! Thank you for visiting Liviah’s Journey page. Liviah is a loving, creative, strong-willed middle child. She adores her family and friends, loves being active and learning, and shines her bright light onto all those she encounters!! 
Liviah suffered from acute liver failure in December of 2021, and we have partnered with The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) who have helped us start this page to raise funds in honor of Liviah’s Journey. 100% of the donations will be available for a lifetime, and will assist with transplant-related expenses, such as hospital stays, doctor visits, medications, etc. All donations to COTA are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. 
This will be a lifelong Journey for Liviah, and we appreciate any and all donations to COTA for Liviahs Journey!

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Please feel free to scroll down to our Recent Blog Posts to stay up-to-date on Liviah’s Journey.
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If you are new to her story, please feel free to first read this overview of Liviah’s unexpected Journey:

The week of Christmas started out normal for her, with family gatherings and cookie decorating, but a few days before Christmas, Liviah’s parents noticed that she woke up with yellow eyes (jaundice), and they took her to the hospital. Within 36 hours, Liviah went from being a happy, healthy 4-year-old little girl, to suffering from the effects of acute liver failure.
(There has been no definitive answer as to what caused the acute liver failure, but doctors suspect that it was due to a virus she had the weekend earlier that caused her immune system to attack her liver.)
Liviah had numerous IV drips, medications, procedures, bags of blood products, pokes and prods, etc. to try and help her liver recover, but unfortunately, her labs from blood draws continued to show the worst, as her liver deteriorated rapidly. Within 7 days she was placed on the transplant list as Status 1A. Without a new liver she would not be able to live for more than a few days. (Less than 1% of liver transplant patients are Status 1A and 1B at any given time.)
Thousands and thousands of prayers from all over the world were prayed for our little girl, and Praise the Lord, we were blessed to have a match for Liviah found within 2 days of being listed. Although we had a match, her liver was no longer functioning, and she needed to be placed on MARS (liver dialysis) to get her to transplant day. Fortunately, her brother and sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles were all able to visit with her the afternoon before she was placed on MARS. (Covid restrictions prohibited them all from seeing her previously). 2 days, and 2 MARS treatments later, transplant day arrived. 
The amazing surgeons, doctors, and nurses wheeled her to the operating room at 10:30 on the morning of January 1st, and 8 hours later they had successfully removed her sick liver and transplanted her with a healthy functioning liver. We are forever grateful for the donor and family who made the ultimate sacrifice that saved our little girl’s life, and they will forever stay in our thoughts and prayers. 
Through her journey, Liviah has shown her family, friends, community, and others all over the world the goodness of God, and how resilient and strong she is. After 21 nights in the hospital, she was able to come home (for the first time), and we were so thankful to have our family of 5 under one roof once again. A few days later, we had a setback, for Liviah had a fever and high pulse. We immediately took her back to the hospital, and after more IVs, procedures, medications, pokes and prods, the doctors came to the conclusion that she was having an episode of rejection. The doctors adjusted her medications to help her body accept her new liver, and over the course of a week and a half she was ready to come back home. 
Overall she has spent a total of 30 nights in the hospital, and we continue to count our blessings as we adjust to her “new normal”.

As stated previously, this will be a lifelong Journey for Liviah, and we appreciate all of the support that we have received and continue to receive!

Please remember to check out our Recent Blog Post section (below) for more up-to-date information!

Thank You and God Bless!
Liz & Jack

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) helps children and young adults who need a life-saving transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support. COTA is the nation’s only fundraising organization solely dedicated to raising life-saving dollars in honor of transplant-needy children and young adults. 100% of each contribution made to COTA in honor of our patients helps meet transplant-related expenses. COTA’s services are free to our families, and gifts to COTA are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.