‘He’s feeling a lot better’: Daughter donates part of her liver to father
Young Hannah Weyrick sits with her father, Jeff, a couple of decades before her organ donation to him.
Hannah Snyder and Jeff Weyrick at Allegheny General Hospital
In September, an Allegheny Health Network surgical team removed part of Hannah Snyder’s liver.
Thanks to the magic of tissue regeneration, the organ has grown back to its normal size.
While that’s good news for Snyder, it may be even better for her father, Jeff Weyrick of South Fayette Township, who also has a full-sized, healthy liver.
If not for his daughter’s decision to donate part of hers to him, his name still might be on a waiting list for a new one.
“They’re still adjusting medications, but he’s feeling a lot better,” said Snyder, who grew up in Peters Township.
About two years ago, Weyrick began suffering from ascites, an abnormal buildup of fluid in the abdomen. He later was diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma, cancer of the liver, and eventually became a candidate for a transplant.
Snyder soon learned she, as someone who’s very much alive, potentially could qualify as a liver donor. And according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, recipients of living-donor livers have a better long-term survival rate compared with livers that come from cadavers.
With that in mind, Snyder decided to pursue the possibility and discussed it with her father.
“I said, ‘At least let me get tested, because that will at least make me feel better, to know that I tried and didn’t just sit here and watch you wither away,'” she said.
She said she traveled from her home in Jacksonville, Fla., to Pittsburgh for “every test in the book, it felt like.”
The tests determined Snyder to be a match, and simultaneous procedures for her and Weyrick were scheduled for Sept. 29 with Allegheny General Hospital’s abdominal transplant team.
“There was really never the question for me as to backing out,” she said. “The transplant team was super reassuring that I could back out at any time, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did that.”
The surgeries occurred almost exactly three months to the day after the team completed its first living-donor liver transplant, joining a select group of U.S. medical centers performing that type of procedure. And for Snyder and her father, everything went as well as could be expected.
“It was a pretty good recovery, and I didn’t have any complications or anything,” she said.
She was able to recover in Pittsburgh while her husband, Joe, who was supportive throughout the entire process, took care of their son.
“I was ready to come back home, for sure. But it was nice to be able to not have to worry about anything with him,” she said about four-year-old Grayson.
Technology allowed them to keep in sufficient contact.
“We FaceTimed every day. He didn’t even notice I was gone,” Snyder said with a laugh.
Her father and mother, Mindy, were able to visit Grayson in Florida during the holiday season, thanks to one heck of an early gift on Snyder’s part.
“It was definitely a major surgery, but I definitely would do it again,” she said. “There’s no doubt in my mind. I would do it again if he needed it again.”