Today, 16-year-old Daisy is the picture of good health. With sparkling blue eyes and a bright smile, she’s the captain of the color guard and loves singing, dancing, and performing in the school musical. Her childhood has been full of beach trips, playground adventures, friends, and family. All moments made possible by the gift of donation.
While there have been plenty of doctor appointments along the way, Daisy says her life has felt remarkably normal.
“There’s been a lot of doctor’s appointments for sure, and there are a few things that set me apart growing up, like the big scar and having to go to appointments all the time,” she said. “But overall, I feel like I’ve had a completely normal experience compared to my peers, and that’s something I’m really grateful for. When people meet me, they don’t know I’ve had a transplant. Getting to grow up and feel like everybody else is amazing.”
In 2009, Daisy was born with biliary atresia, a condition where the bile ducts are blocked or missing, causing bile to build up and harm the liver. To treat it, she underwent a surgery called the Kasai procedure, creating a new pathway for bile to drain from the liver. This worked for a time, but eventually her health took a turn.
“I started seeing yellowing in her eyes,” said Jen, Daisy’s mother. “Nobody believed me at first, but her bilirubin started slowly creeping up. We tried a lot of different things, including antibiotics, but my dad, who was a surgeon, said, ‘you don’t want to just keep watching her get more sick.’ That was kind of our cue to switch from a GI team to a surgical team and put her on the transplant list.”
In 2010, Daisy was added to the transplant list on St. Patrick’s Day, and on April 29, she received her new liver at Duke.
“It was scary, of course, but we had full faith in her surgical team at Duke,” said Jen. “The surgery went really well, and week by week, she got better and better. We couldn’t believe we went home with a pink baby!”
A few months later, Daisy’s family wrote a letter to their pediatric donor’s family, expressing their immense gratitude.
“We are very aware that on the day our lives were forever changed, yours were as well, and our hearts ache for you,” they wrote. “We can only hope that the knowledge of how much you’ve made a difference in our lives can bring you some peace. We will never take for granted the gift that was given to us and our daughter.”
Although too young to recall the details of her transplant, Daisy is deeply aware of and thankful for her second chance at life and eager to raise awareness about organ donation.
“It’s really important to me to advocate, because I’ve come to understand the magnitude of it over time,” said Daisy. “I recently registered as an organ donor at the DMV, and I saw the Donate Life posters on the wall. It made me want to be helpful and make an impact, because I know that I can. I’ve had such a positive experience, and maybe somebody will be influenced by what I say.”
With college on the horizon, Daisy hopes to pursue a career in healthcare, determined to “make every day count.”
“I have such a deep gratitude for all the things I’m able to do,” she said. “My experience as a recipient has made me want to seize every moment. It’s motivated me, it’s driven me. It’s not every day that your life is saved. Not everybody gets that. I want to give back, and without my donor, that’s something I wouldn’t have been able to do. Because of my donor, the possibilities are endless.”
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