CHAPTER 138

First written: 2012-02-08

Rewritten: 2026-03-19

To accept a living liver donation? A question I had long chosen to avoid - yet one I could no longer escape.

As with other organ transplants, liver grafts come from two sources. One is from the recently deceased - a cadaveric liver - where the patient must reach the hospital within two hours of notification. The other is from a living donor. Among blood relatives, compatibility tends to be higher, and the timing of surgery can be arranged with greater flexibility.

In early 2012, during a follow-up consultation, my liver specialist placed this difficult question before me: Was there anyone in my family who could donate part of their liver?

He knew that two small tumors still remained in my liver, and that my oncologist would arrange further chemotherapy. I could feel his concern - his wish to eradicate the disease as swiftly as possible.

I told him that most of my five brothers were carriers of hepatitis B and therefore unsuitable as donors. Besides, I told myself that they were no longer young. He then asked if I had children. I replied that I had two sons: my elder son is autistic, and my younger one had only just turned nineteen.

From the moment I learned that a transplant might be necessary, I had already dismissed the idea of asking those closest to me to donate. I could not bear the thought of them taking such a risk for my sake - especially my younger son, still so young.

The doctor, ever frank, told me that the mortality risk for living liver donors is very low - between one in two hundred and one in three hundred. And in this world, he added, many willingly take on even greater risks: firefighters, police officers, soldiers.

He mentioned, too, a recent case - an eighteen-year-old young woman who had donated part of her liver to her brother in his twenties. Whether such a choice constitutes a risk, he said, is for the individual to decide. My elder son, unable to make such a decision, was naturally excluded. But my younger son - he suggested - might be someone I could speak with.

A question I had tried to set aside had returned, demanding an answer.

In truth, a liver transplant is no small matter. The liver cancer that made it necessary was already a formidable trial. Yet mine had been detected early, treated in time, and I had passed through several critical junctures. As a patient, I had, in some ways, grown used to these ordeals. Still, I could not help but hope that hardships would not arrive one after another.

I did not wish for it. But what must come, came all the same.

After the consultation, I shared this dilemma with my wife. She told me that living donation had already been mentioned in the transplant information. From a medical standpoint, it was an inevitable consideration. In fact, she had even thought about donating part of her own liver.

She reminded me to ask the doctor, at the next visit, whether she might be a suitable donor. She had also considered that, should my condition become critical, she might raise the possibility with our younger son.

I recall that late last year, when I told my father about the prospect of a liver transplant, he murmured to himself - twice - lamenting that he was too old to donate his liver to me. The selfless love of my wife and father - I received it fully, and with deep gratitude.

That evening, my wife took it upon herself to convey the doctor’s question to our younger son. He listened quietly and attentively. Calmly speaking, on a life path already marked by many challenges, it was perhaps inevitable that he, too, would face such a question. Besides, he has always been slow to warm to things - so we allowed him the time to reflect.

Postscript:

(1) In late October of that same year, I was approved for a liver transplant. Six weeks later, I received a cadaveric liver, and the operation was successful.

(2) During my recovery, a male patient in the same ward underwent a kidney transplant, receiving a kidney from his adult son. The son was discharged after three days in hospital.