Help Support Andrea's recovery from her living donor liver transplant.
This is really what's going on 

Well hey there everyone.
I’m alive! 🙋🏼‍♀️❤️🙌🏼✨

Here is a little update breakdown since Our Live Liver Donor Transplant surgery here at UW Health University Hospital. - Everyone at this Hospital has been incredible. I’m so glad I transferred to them even though it’s a long ride. They have provided the best experience I could have asked for.

Thursday January 8 , 2026 at 5:30am we got checked in to surgery. We met with the doctors and residents holding us through everything.
 

They took Jamie back first. Within 2 hours they took me back, since everything was going well with Jamie to proceed for me.

Both surgeries were successful. Although, some anatomy changes showed up once they got deeper in and had to do some adjusting with bile ducts and other valves.
I remember waking up in the OR and seeing the clock at 8:34pm. So about a 10 hour surgery for me.
We were released to the ICU, and for me- that was pure insanity.
I had a very challenging time with pain management and the effects of how anesthesia, the pain medications, and the immense amount of steroids, immunosuppressants, and fluids they had to pump me with.
Nobody could have prepared me (us) for what this experience was going to be like or the possibilities that showed up.

Jamie is incredible! She had the strength to get up, stand up, and walk her beautiful self over to my room to be able to see me after surgery in the ICU! She is such a warrior angel hero! And I am forever grateful to her.

It was so wild to be on the other side of the surgery with her standing there, alive as well, and me with 70% of her liver inside me keeping me alive. The emotions that continue to encompass my being is beyond what I could begin to express. 🥹
 

Just imagine, I went to sleep with my old liver in me, that was barely functioning and hanging on for dear life for well over 2 decades… to wake up and be alive with a functioning liver because Jamie sacrificed herself to give this gift to me. Unreal. And the fact that they are even able to do it biologically just completely blows my mind. I’m in awe. God is so so good. All the time. 🙌🏼

For me and my experience, this has been the most shocking and painfully excruciating thing I’ve ever gone through. While also holding this explosive heart burst of gratitude for God, Jamie, the incredible staff and teams here at UW Health, and all the the support, prayers and love we’ve received, through it all. We have felt it to our cores. Such a beautiful experience regardless of the suffering that comes with it.

The doctors completely atomic bombed my immune system. I basically have no immune system. I had already been on anti rejection transplant (immunosuppressants) medications before the transplant due to having autoimmune hepatitis, so I know the side effects well and had an idea what to anticipate. Though at these highest doses and other infusions to just take out any ability to fight something off has wreaked havoc on me so intensely. The tremors and deep shakes from the inside out and just feeling the chemicals running through me is extremely palpable and caused a lot of issues for me on every level. I’m just also highly sensitive to everything so this massive blowout took a major hit.
 

My blood pressure went up pretty dangerously and had to be treated, low oxygen hard to breathe, tachycardia, gained almost 30lbs of fluid within 2 days that was about to burst through my skin making it almost unbearable to walk or move and looked completely deformed, I had to get insulin and check blood sugars for a while since the steroids made me unable to produce the insulin I needed, etc etc the list goes on with how painfully challenging and surprising a lot of this has been.
 

My body is recalibrating to this new liver, the meds, and the surgery itself and everything involved. Taking it day by day the best I can. And honestly, taking it 10 minutes by 10 minutes.

Just moving to get up out of bed or a chair or anything, mind you, takes so long and creates so much more pain than anyone could imagine. Holy smokes. I’m not allowed to bend, twist, lift, or use my core muscles at all. I did not realize how many movements require core muscles. We have to be extremely cautious to not over do it or the incision and inner vascular stitching could come undone. My incision is across my entire upper abdomen stapled closed. It’s healing well with no signs of infection or bruising.
 

I needed a few blood transfusions to help bring me back to life a bit after surgery since my hemoglobin kept dipping too low. I always feel a little better after a unit of blood.

The pain meds made me feel awful and I was trying to endure it all without taking pain meds at one point. Not a smart idea when my guts were literally dug through and manhandled with an incision that huge.
So I have been having to play catch up often to get things under control. Otherwise I’m bracing and breathing through more than they want me to be.
 

I have not slept more than 30 minutes to 3 hours each night, all very interrupted. Pain and high dose of steroids will do that. What they have given me for sleep has not helped either. Still working on that. Not that I slept before the transplant either, but it’s so draining and not allowing for deeper healing that I need.

All this while having to go to transplant class at 10am each day and meet with countless of people all throughout the day. Not a moment to rest, breathe, or have a good cry. It’s taken a toll. And there is so much more that was part of this experience too.

Jamie got discharged on Tuesday January 13! She had her amazing daughter, Serena, here during the surgery and hospital stay and has a friend with her helping her in aftercare.

I was discharged on Friday January 16. When I was discharged my liver numbers were slightly higher than they’d like them to be. Up until then, They were trending down (showing that I was accepting Jamie’s liver) until the day of discharge. They told me that higher numbers in my liver function tests could be the sign of rejection. Then they’d want to do a liver biopsy soon depending on how my lab numbers trend. That would require me to go back to the hospital and be treated with higher dose of steroids and immunosuppression. They mentioned that 30-40% of people have to go back in the first month for some sort of complication.

So I did get readmitted last night Sunday January 18. I had high blood pressure the day prior and felt weird and also felt more depleted yesterday. I woke up from a late nap with a fever. They require transplant recipients to follow a set of criteria every day and if certain numbers are high or low we have to contact our coordinators and be seen to rule out rejection, sepsis, infections etc. anything 100.5 fever or more is one of those things. I was also having tachycardia and just overall very weak and not feeling good. Hard to tell when I’m already not feeling good from surgery. So many different aspects to pay attention to it can get confusing. Especially that I lived my life prior feeling sick all the time so I’m trying to learn what is “normal” or “healthy“ now in a new context.
They originally thought I had a clot in the portal vein though it was ruled out after being reviewed by the attending and fellow radiologist and transplant team. I do have some fluid around my right lung and in my abdomen, though they say it is pretty common still being this fresh out of surgery. They loaded me up on antibiotics to hit any potential infection head on just to be safe. They will keep me here for another 24-48 hours unless something else happens.

If you see me back in the hospital often, it’s just par for the course. Many transplant patients run into complications or strange things that need to be addressed immediately. Especially in the first year. Our body is not meant to allow foreign cells/organs into our bodies. The body is doing what it knows what to do. And then, while already having the heightened autoimmune conditions can make it a bit more challenging to keep things under control.

But…I made it through surgery! And that was just the first big leap. Now the adjustments and integration of it all will be a long bumpy road ahead. And hey, that’s okay. I’m blessed to be alive! I’ll keep getting through it all with God and my people by my side.

Huge massive shout out to Jamie O'Shea, Sarah Aschera, my dad Joe Stong, my kids, Christa Stong, Zach Witt, Serena O'Shea, Jackie, and everyone else on the close support group.
And my deep gratitude for all of you praying and spreading the word to pray and hold this miracle in your hearts so we get through this in the best way.
I love you all. This is just the beginning so please keep holding us up! Jamie has a new liver to regrow!
✝️👏🏼❤️‍🩹🙏🏼🫂😇✨💪🏼🤗🙌🏼⚡️

My dad and Sarah have been my main caretakers in the hospital and Sarah at home. And I have to say the way these two have showed up for me consistently and have just held space and allowed me to have my space and be in this process fully has been so healing for me. Rockstars in care I didn’t know I needed. Thank you both for respecting what I need and how I need it and hustling up and down and back and forth for me. ❤️‍🩹

*Due to being so immunocompromised and with all the illnesses going around, I’m limiting my contact with people. Every visitor is a greater risk of exposure and I really would prefer to not need to get readmitted again after being released next if I can avoid it. Masks and handwashing and sanitizing is required to be in my space. There are a lot of other things that are in place to protect myself that I need to follow I didn’t realize that it was going to be so extreme for so long.
FaceTime/Zoom is great to catch up for now. I’m just going to do my part to take the best care of myself and this new liver as possible. It’s not worth the risk.

I Love you all. ❤️