Baby Rheya gets a new lease of life from a liver donor

  • 30 Nov 2021
  • 271 views

Rheya (18 months old) was born with a rare liver disease called biliary atresia. When an infant has biliary atresia, the bile ducts in the liver are inflamed, blocking bile flow to the gallbladder and eventually leading to liver failure. In 2019, Rheya went through a surgery (kasai procedure) 40 days into her birth and was told by the doctors that the long term solution to the problem was to have a liver transplant. Last year June,Rheya’s father, 31 year old J.Sunil came forward to donate part of his liver but test results were not a match and the family was told to source for a donor immediately. After a frantic 3 months search with the the help of social media postings for a potential donor, Sakthibalan (28 years old, manager in an international trade organisation) stepped forward to donate 23% of his liver on Sept 30, 2020. Today Rheya and the donor are leading a healthy life after the transplant.