Teen gets viral after undergoing two liver transplants (exclusively)

Emma Mendelssohn was only 15 when she first noticed a yellow shade that creeps into the skin.

It was May 2018, and high school others from San Francisco Bay Area emailed her doctor, who told her to keep an eye on it. Then, as suddenly as it seemed, the yellow faded. With sports, school and homecoming around the corner, Mendelssohn brushed it, along with the extreme fatigue that followed. Then she criticized it to be a busy teenager.

But at the end of October, just a few days before the return weekend, her skin became a deep yellow again – and this time it did not disappear. The exhaustion had also only worsened.

“I was like,” okay, what the actual F. This is not normal. This is not chilly, “says Mendelssohn exclusively.

She returned to the doctor, who ordered blood plants. For starters, everything looked normal, with the exception of a result that had not yet returned: her liver enzyme levels. It was on a Tuesday. Last Wednesday – Halloween – she was called urgent to the emergency room.

The doctors gave her a bag of medication in the hope of stabilizing her liver function. If she succeeded, she would be transferred to Oakland Children’s Hospital for steroid infusions. If not, she would be sent to the UCSF Medical Center for an emergency liver transplant.

“They were like,” you are all kinds of tangled. You have to come back in, “she reminds.” I felt sick, but I thought I just had a bad stomach or maybe the flu. I didn’t think I’m dying. ”

“I remember thinking,“ Okay, this seems a bit traumatic. I’m afraid. I think this is a bit much. “And they were like” No, girl, you’re cooked. “And I was like,” Okay … Yes, okay. “”

When the days went by, her lab number was aggravated.

Soon Mendelssohn was transferred to the UCSF Medical Center, where doctors diagnosed her with Autoimmune hepatitis – A rare condition where the immune system attacks the liver. They also discovered that she had Hashimoto’s diseaseAnother autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid.

They started her on steroids for about a day and a half while the doctors decided whether her liver could be saved or if she would need a transplant.

“In the end, it was my decision,” she says, adding that her parents are divorced and she has always been independent. “They told me: ‘You have a week to live, or we can put you on the transplant list.’ So I was like, “Yes, these odds are pretty self -explanatory. ”

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On Friday, Mendelssohn was officially added to the transplant list. Just two days later – on Sunday – she got her new liver.

When she was in the hospital, she reminds how a woman came into her room and asked if she wanted to make a wish. Then Mendelssohn told her she could give it to someone else. The woman replied, “No, it’s not really how it works. If you are sick, you only get one.”

“It made me realize,” Oh, I’m sick, I’m really sick for the rest of my life, “she adds.” “This will be something that is common in my life forever now.”

But even after the operation, life did not return to normal immediately. Mendelssohn, now 22, had to learn about basic tasks – including how to postpone yourself, put on their side and even go. Although it was difficult, she was so determined to get out of the hospital that she didn’t even care. The more she practiced, the easier it was.

Together with the re -learning of data, Mendelssohn met an astonishing a few years of recovery, largely due to complications involved one of her bile ducts: it had tied or sewn closed during the donor extraction process. This issue caused persistent problems and made healing slowly and painful.

It took almost three years for her body to fully accept the new liver. But as she got through the long stretch, her body finally began to stabilize. She graduated in high school and became involved in Colorado State University. When she moved to Colorado for college, Mendelssohn says she recognized again.

“Freshman -year was fantastic. Sophomore year too good. But the junior year I began to notice that I didn’t feel so good anymore,” she says.

The familiar yellow shade – the same early symptoms from years earlier – had returned. She went home for Winter Break and had laboratories made, hoping it would be a quick solution. For starters, doctors thought it could be handled with an ERCP – a procedure used to clear bile ducts and insert stent.

“I told everyone,“ Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a week. “I wasn’t back in a week.”

Back in California, doctors discovered that her liver enzyme levels were extremely elevated and aggravated. A battery of tests followed: biopsies, ultrasound, MRI and more. But nothing explained why her body did not respond to the treatment.

It was when they tested for something so rare that most transplant patients have never heard of it: donor -mediated rejection. The condition occurs when antibodies in the donor liver and the recipient’s immune system begin to attack each other.

“They said: ‘Nobody gets this. We strongly doubt that is what you have,'” reminds mendssohn. “But with my turn? I had it.”

“There was no treatment protocol,” she says. “Nobody said,“ Here’s the plan. “I just sat at home waiting.”

Eventually, she was started on immunotherapy cancer-like treatment involving a cocktail of medicines delivered through weekly infusions. She must be constantly monitored for Epstein-Barr virus because it could develop into lymphoma for her. At one point she even got the virus, but thankfully it did not continue.

“Tuesdays I would get a two hour infusion, Thursdays another. Then I had a six -hour injection of a third drug,” she explains. “I would feel like absolute dog debris for two days and then do everything again.”

The bike continued for eight incredible weeks. And the most difficult part? Mendelssohn would not know if the treatment worked until the end. But deep down she knew that if it didn’t answer, she would meet another liver transplant, something she was desperate to avoid after all the complications from her first.

“I think that when I was first hospital, I had already agreed with the idea of dying, just accept it for what it was,” she says. “So when the second time came, I was not familiar with that concept. I was okay with it. I was happy with how I lived my life and never felt upset or regretted with something I had done – like wish I had more time to fix or do something.”

“After my first transplant, I really embraced every moment and used every opportunity,” she adds. “I was never regrettable for, frankly, I felt that if I died, I would be completely satisfied with how I had lived my 22 years.”

In the midst of uncertainty and physical challenges, she turned to TikTok, partly to deal with, partly to document her experience, and partly to raise awareness of the often hidden reality in transplantation. As an intermediate child with an older sister and two younger brothers, she was not stranger to wild comments. To get before the negativity, she made a point to joke about herself before anyone else could.

“I’m not trying to be inspiring,” she says. “I just want people to know the truth: This is difficult. And sometimes it’s ugly.”

For starters, she did not expect her videos to get much attention. But when they got traction, the answer gave her both a sense of purpose and a platform. Her sincerity, dry humor and emotional honesty reasoned with thousands – some other transplant recipients, others simply inspired by her resilience.

“I was like, dang, there are many who look at me. I can’t just die – it’s a little tangled,” she says. “I feel that I should at least give it a little of once.”

“I finally decided that it was probably the better idea to try the other transplant and not die at that point. But I wasn’t a fan of it in the least,” she adds with a laugh. “I was like,” damn, this sucks. I hate this. I don’t know why I decided to do this. “But I was already too far in. And I wasn’t born a twist. And I just went through it.”

Her younger brother – a high school at that time – was another motivation.

“I thought,“ I really don’t want to miss his degree. It is also tangled. ”

Still, she not only lived for others – she also fought for herself. Autoimmune hepatitis, she explains, is not something you overcome; It’s something you manage. “I still have it. I will always do it. Unfortunately, there is no cure. And not much research either.”

That’s where her two closest friends, Molly and Riley, went in. Although they attended different elementary schools, they became inseparable after meeting in high school. In the summer she told them that she did not want another transplant, they were among the first people she trusted.

“They made it really clear that I didn’t have to change my mind for them. I could do what I wanted,” she says.

But rather than pushing her, the measures-based a non-profit to support research and drive for a cure.

“It’s really, really cool,” says Mendelssohn. “Increasing awareness of TikTok has honestly been the only time I’ve ever seen this disease talked about publicly. It is not so common. But yes – it has definitely stuck with me. There is no cure right now, but hopefully we will one day come close or even find one.”

At present, Mendelssohn says that her health is quite stable. She has moved back to San Francisco Bay Area and plans to end college there.

Her recovery this time has been much faster compared to her first transplant. “Last time it took me 17 days just to get out of the hospital,” she reminds. “I literally had to learn how to go – it took one and a half weeks. Everything was just so extended.”

Now she is facing new limitations: no parachute jumping, no swimming with large white sharks, no dangerous stunts. Most people can remove these boundaries as smaller, but for Mendelssohn, parachuting was a dream that she hoped to hunt.

“I guess I have to settle for virtual reality or something,” she jokes. “But I’ll find out.”

She clearly describes herself: “I’m really just an ordinary crazy. When you are in a situation like this you will learn to handle it. I’m not a super special, crazy person – this is just the cards I got. So you figure out how you play your hand.”

“People always say,” if you can’t fix anything in five minutes … “That’s true,” she adds. “In retrospect, there are much bigger things to stress over than a cake that does not bake right or get a bad rating on a test. There is always another test. It really is not so meaningful. People take things so seriously, but sometimes it’s just not that big.”