Pennsylvania mother finds transplant donor for daughter on Facebook

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Staying in touch with old friends on Facebook proved more than a little fruitful for a Pennsylvania mom who updated her status in hopes of recruiting a liver donor, CBS Pittsburgh reported.

Donya McCoy’s daughter, 3-year-old Kennedy Stevenson, has a rare metabolic disease and is only one of eight people in the world to be diagnosed with the condition.

Kennedy will also be one of the first people in the world with the condition to undergo a liver transplant operation that doctors hope will save her life.

Michael Thompson, who went to high school with McCoy, is going to help make that happen.

“I think I asked him five or six times if he was serious, if that was a serious response,” McCoy told CBS Pittsburgh of Thompson’s reply on Facebook.

Thompson was serious, pointing out that he didn’t think the reality had sunk in for McCoy until they started the steps. During the testing process, Thompson turned out to be a match, qualifying him as a liver donor.

While surgeons remove Kennedy’s liver at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, doctors at UPMC Montefiore will remove up to 25 percent of Thompson’s liver, which will be donated to Kennedy.

“They think this is going to cure her,” McCoy said. “And if it does, it gives me so much comfort that maybe another mom doesn’t have to walk the same path that I did. They’ll figure things out sooner, and know how to intervene and do a transplant, and life goes on.”

Click for more from CBS Pittsburgh.