DONOR | Katie's Story

Katie Fleming

Jo Anne Mack Needs A LIVING Liver DONOR

My name is Katie Fleming and I am the second oldest of three siblings. Our mom, Jo Anne Mack, is battling liver disease. This is our story.

My mom is the most selfless person I know. I don't think you appreciate all that your mom does until you become a mother yourself. After having my daughters Madison and Collins, I can confidently say my mom is and always has been superwoman.

How she accomplished everything she did with no relatives around to help her is still a mystery to me. Even though my siblings and I are now fully grown adults, my mom supports us the same as when we were kids. She'll still drop everything in a moment's notice if ever we need her for anything.

Watching my mom as a grandmother warms my heart on a daily basis. Her love for her grandchildren is blantantly unconditional.. Their unbreakable bond continues to grow every day and seeing them together never fails to make me smile. Even on my mom's worst days, when her illness causes her to feel tired and unwell, nothing can stop her from spending time with her grandkids. She's always happy to chat over FaceTime, sing songs she doesn't know the words to, or read them one of her favoirte books. I feel so incredibly lucky that I get to call her mom, and that Madison Collins get to call her grandma.

Our mom has been living with Primary Biliary Cholangitis for over two decades, but it has grown worse over the last two years. Watching our mom slowly get sicker has been heartbreaking for all of us. She loves cooking for family and friends, hosting celebrations for any occasion, traveling to new places, helping her kids with home projects and tending to her garden for hours at a time. The reality of her disease has caused her chronic fatigue, and she can no longer participate in the things she has always loved.

Today I ask that you please share my story with your family and friends. My mom needs a living liver donor and we have not yet found the perfect match. A liver transplant means my mom gets to live. She gets to be there for every family moment, big or small. She gets to go back to entertaining, traveling and all the other things she loves most.

Many people don't know that a human liver regenerates to 99-100% of its original size and donors and recipients can live and function normally after donation. Unfortunatley, there is less than a 10% chance of someone being a perfect donor match. Although we know many people who have been tested to become a living donor for our mom, we unfortunately still have not found the perfect match. Becoming a living donor is 100% anonymous. No one, including the recipient, will know who the donor is, unless the donor wishes to be known. This provides privacy for the donor and the ability to opt out of the process at any point. This procesure is also 100% covered by Jo Anne's insurance. For us, getting a living donor means getting to keep our mom for decades longer. If you are interested in being a donor or want to learn more about the process, please refer to the Transplant Center at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) by calling 866-925-3897.

We appreciate your support more than you know.

START YOUR JOURNEY

Become Jo Anne Mack's Donor

If you are considering being a living donor please use links below to contact Jo Anne Mack's Transplant Center. Begin by completing the donor questionnaire

Fill Out DONOR Questionnaire
(INQUIRES ARE 100% CONFIDENTIAL)

Becoming a Liver DONOR Find a Transplant Center near you

Yale New Haven Transplantation Center

333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT, 06520

(866) 925-3897 Email Transplant Center

Did you know?

Medical expenses for living organ donors are 100% covered, and inquires from potential donors are 100% confidential! Contact the Transplant Center to learn more about living donation.

More Donor FAQs

Share the Importance of Living Donation

Liver transplantation has been a successful treatment and standard of care for end-stage liver disease since the early 1980s.

Technical advancements in liver surgery, as well as the liver's tremendous ability to regenerate, have made living donor liver transplantation a life-saving reality.

There are currently 120,000 people waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant in the U.S. Of these, 15,000 await liver transplants.

Although more than 6,000 liver transplants were performed last year, over 1,700 patients died while waiting on the list.

Deceased donor livers are allocated to patients based on how sick they are, determined by their MELD score, where sicker patients receive priority.

Living donation offers patients the option of transplant before they get very sick--regardless of MELD score--significantly decreasing the time they wait for a liver.

Living donation not only saves the life of the recipient; it also frees up a liver for a patient on the waiting list who does not have that option.

The Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) and Pediatric End-Stage Liver Disease (PELD) are numerical, objective scales that allocate available livers to the sickest patients. Patients move up the list as their scores increase.

The first living donor liver transplant took place in 1988. Since then, living donors have continued giving the gift of life and making a difference.

When a recipient has a living donor, the wait time for transplant is shorter and the transplant can be scheduled in advanced when the recipient is in good health and when it is convenient for both the donor and the recipient.

Financial burdens shouldn’t prevent the gift of life. The National Living Donor Assistance Center (NLDAC) can offer financial support for living donor travel expenses.

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