'WE DID IT': Tinley Mom Of 2 Receives Life-Saving Liver Transplant

TINLEY PARK, IL — Just six months ago, Elizabeth Heaton was staring down the possibility that the rest of her life could be shorter than she would like.

After years of battling a chronic liver disease, Heaton's last shot at a long life was finding a living liver donor—and she needed that to happen fast.

Diagnosed in 2017 with chronic liver disease primary sclerosing cholangitis, she was fighting a disease in which the liver’s bile ducts become inflamed, scarred and eventually blocked. After nearly seven years and 15 surgeries, a new liver was the only solution.

On July 23, she got it.

"I just wanted to let you know that I received my life-saving liver transplant on July 23 and I am now home," Heaton said in a note to Patch. "The surgery was a great success! Thank you so much for sharing my story—it literally saved my life."

In telling her story earlier this year, Heaton, now 36, described what was happening to her as what claimed the life of Chicago Bears great Walter Payton.

"While medicines and surgery can delay the inevitable onslaught of the disease," Heaton wrote in a public plea to find a donor, "there is no known cure. When medicine and surgery have done all they can, liver transplantation is the only choice to stay alive."

Heaton was 30 years old and had just given birth to her son when lab results during a post-partum checkup revealed abnormally high liver enzyme counts. A visit to her primary care doctor confirmed the same.

She made big changes to her diet—making sure it was low-salt—but still, the counts hovered high, and higher.

"No matter what, my liver enzymes kept getting higher," Heaton told Patch.

After a series of attempts to lessen her pain and fight the condition—including surgeons placing a dozen stents to try to fight the inflammation and scarring happening in the liver's bile ducts—doctors said only a new liver would do.

"'We’re putting a band-aid on things,'" she said doctors told her at Christmastime 2023. "'We can’t keep doing this to you.

"'We need to get you a liver, so your body can recover.'"

As a prospective recipient who was on the healthier side than others on the transplant list, a living donor was a better option for Heaton. Both she and the donor would have a better chance of recovery, she said.

She issued a public plea via social media and news outlets. She needed a donor who was blood type O (+ or -), between the ages of 18 and 55, and in healthy condition.

On June 7, a living donor match was found. She doesn't know whose liver fit into her body like a puzzle piece—the donor asked to stay anonymous—but she knows they found her because of her public fight for her life.

"... The sincere gratitude and appreciation I have for all of those who shared my story," Heaton said, of how she's feeling now. "My living donor chose to remain anonymous, so I do not know much besides that they reside in the Chicagoland area, heard about my story from social media/news/sharing."

Heaton kept her supporters updated via her CaringBridge website.

"I cannot believe just a week ago that I was being rolled in for a life-saving living donor liver transplant surgery," she wrote on July 30. " Last week has seemed to go by in a blur and incredibly slowly all at the same time."

Heaton is deeply grateful for her living donor who, her surgeon told her, "could not be more of a perfect match" for her.

"I received the CT results back today and my new liver was a 99.9 percent perfect match," she wrote. "He said he could not have asked for a better donor to replace my old liver. All 50+ connections are healing very well together, and all my organs are awake and starting to acclimate to their new roomie."

Now home with her daughter Leah, 9, and son Noah, 7, the significance of someone being willing to give of themselves so her kids have their mom is not lost on her. If people are willing, she reminds them of the importance of signing up to be an organ donor on their driver's license.

"It takes just a couple of minutes and can save so many lives!" she said.

If people are wanting to help but do not want to do so surgically, there is a current blood shortage and donations are greatly needed, she said.

To her donor, her deepest thanks.

"I am so incredibly thankful for this perfect match that has asked to remain anonymous, but every day please know that I will be paying it forward with the extreme gift of life that you have given me," Heaton wrote on her CaringBridge site. "This new life has not only given me the years that could’ve been taken away from me, but also all of the memories that are no longer seeming impossible—but rather exciting new adventures to embark upon without fear that they may never come true."

Nine days after her surgery, Heaton was discharged from the hospital on July 31.

"I am going to take the next couple of days to rest, settle into the new routine and be with my family who I have missed so incredibly much," she wrote.

"I will post a 'Post Transplant' home life post soon, till then, WE DID IT."