The road to recovery: Graham infant recovering after receiving liver donation

After months of waiting for a donor, infant Everleigh Deck, of Graham, received the liver transplant she desperately needed to survive and is on the road to recovery.

Everleigh’s parents, Taylor and Tyson, had done all they could but simply had to wait and hope and pray for the best. Finally, on Sept. 22, Everleigh received the transplant surgery for her liver and has steadily been improving since then.

Everleigh was diagnosed with biliary atresia about two months after her birth. She had been born without a gallbladder or bile ducts, but it was something doctors were unable to discover in a newborn.

Doctors attempted a procedure to attempt to fix the problem but there was no guarantee it would work.

After months of information being shared about Everleigh’s condition on social media, one of Tyson’s long-distance cousins, Crissy Reid, saw one of the posts and reached out to the couple to let them know that she had applied to be a living donor.

According to doctors, the ideal candidate needed to be a healthy, petite female in her 20s or 30s with a low body mass index. The donor also needed to have O Positive or O Negative blood.

“(Crissy) happened to be a perfect match. The transplant surgeons here literally said they could not have ordered a better liver for Everleigh,” Taylor said.

Originally, Everleigh was listed at a Dallas hospital waiting for a deceased donor, but the family hadn’t had any success with that in months. Taylor and Tyson took Everleigh to San Antonio for a transplant evaluation there, where she was listed for a deceased donor, but also so the search could begin for a living donor.

During the time between when the family first shared about Everleigh’s need for a transplant to when she got it, more than 1,000 people applied to be living donors for the infant before Reid was selected. Taylor shared she believed it was a record for the hospital.

The surgery for Everleigh took place at University Health in San Antonio, near where Reid lives. Both Everleigh and Reid are recovering well from their respective surgeries.

“(Everleigh) was in surgery all day. It was a 12-hour surgery but she did fantastic,” Taylor said. “Her liver is working beautifully, all her labs are normal. All the testing, ultrasounds, all their testing that they’re doing looks great so far.”

Everleigh spent approximately the first two weeks post-surgery in the ICU for observation but has since been able to be transferred to a regular unit. She will continue to have consistent lab work done and checkups for the next few months while the family remains in San Antonio.

The first year following the transplant will be crucial to Everleigh’s recovery and development. For the first three months, she will need to be isolated as much as possible and kept away from any potential infections.

She’ll continue to get labs and ultrasounds twice a week to make sure her body is responding correctly.

Reid, meanwhile, has already recovered from the surgery and been released from the hospital. Due to Everleigh’s small size, doctors only needed to take a portion of Reid’s liver for the transplant and she has already returned to her normal life.

While waiting for Everleigh’s transplant, the Decks wanted to emphasize the need for donors everywhere.

While Taylor and Tyson are grateful for what Reid was able to do for them and their daughter, they continue to stress the importance of donating if one feels inclined to give.

“There’s so much need for this. I’m hoping that out of those 1,000 people (who applied to donate to Everleigh), that there’s a handful that still feel led to donate to a child or an adult that is on the list waiting,” Taylor said.
“I really would like people to know that just because they didn’t get the call for Everleigh, they didn’t get tested for Everleigh, or were a match for Everleigh, there’s still a huge need for it; Everleigh is not the only child.”