Teens go viral after receiving two liver transplants (exclusive)

Emma Mendelssohn was only 15 years old when she first noticed the yellow tint that creeped into her skin.

It was May 2018, and a San Francisco Bay Area high school sophomore emailed the doctor. Then, the yellow huang faded just as it suddenly appeared. Sports, school and homecoming were rounding the corner, and Mendelssohn brushed it off. At the time, she chalked it like a busy teenager.

But by late October, a few days before Homecoming weekend, her skin had once again turned deep yellow. This time it didn't disappear. The fatigue was also worsening.

“I said, 'Okay, the real F. This isn't normal. This isn't cold,” Mendelssohn tells only people.

She returned to the doctor who ordered blood work. At first, everything looked normal except for one outcome that had not yet returned, namely the enzyme levels in the liver. It was Tuesday. By Wednesday – Halloween – she was called to the emergency room urgently.

The doctor gave her a bag of medicine, hoping to stabilize the function of her liver. If successful, she will be transferred to Auckland Children's Hospital for steroid injections. Otherwise, she will be sent to UCSF Medical Center for an emergency liver transplant.

“They recall, 'You're all kinds of messes. You have to come back,' she recalls. “It made me feel sick, but I thought the stomach bugs and the flu were bad. I didn't think I was dying.”

“Okay, this seems a bit traumatic. I'm afraid. I think this is a bit of a bit.” And they were like, “No, girl, you're being cooked.” And I was like, “It's okay…well, it's okay.” ”

As the days went by, her lab numbers got worse.

Soon Mendelssohn was transferred to UCSF Medical Center, where doctors diagnosed him with autoimmune hepatitis. This is a rare condition in which the immune system attacks the liver. They also discovered that she had Hashimoto's disease, another autoimmune disorder affecting the thyroid gland.

They decided whether they could save her liver or whether she needed a transplant, but they started her on steroids for about a day and a half.

“In the end, that was my decision,” she said, adding that her parents were divorced and that she was always independent. “They told me, 'You have a week to live, or we can put you on the transplant list.' So, 'Yeah, those odds put me on the list.'”

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By Friday, Mendelssohn had been officially added to the port list. Just two days later – on Sunday – she received her new liver.

While in the hospital, she recalls how women come to their room and ask if they want to recite their wishes. At the time, Mendelssohn told her that she could give it to someone else. The woman replied, “No, it's not really how it works. If you're sick, you just get it.”

“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's always trending in my life now.”

However, even after the surgery, life did not return to normal any time soon. Mendelssohn, now 22, had to relearn basic tasks. It was difficult, but she didn't bother her as she was determined to leave the hospital. The more she practiced, the easier it became.

In addition to the relearning task, Mendelssohn faced a tough few years of recovery, mainly due to complications involving one of her bile ducts. This problem caused persistent problems and slow and painful healing.

It took her body almost three years to fully embrace her new liver. But as she went through that long stretch, her body finally began to stabilize. She graduated from high school and committed to Colorado State University. By the time she moved to Colorado for college, Mendelssohn says she was feeling well again.

“Freshman year was great. Sophomore year is great. But in third grade, I started to realize I wasn't feeling that good anymore,” she says.

Its familiar shade of yellow – the same early symptoms as a few years ago – is back. She went home for a winter break and did the lab, hoping it would be a simple fix. At first, doctors thought they could handle it with ERCP. This is the procedure used to clear the bile duct and insert the 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 enzyme levels in the liver were very elevated and worsened. A series of tests followed: biopsies, ultrasound, MRI, and more. However, there is no explanation for why her body did not respond to treatment.

It is not heard of most transplant patients when they tested something very rare: rejection via donors. This condition occurs when the donor liver antibodies and the recipient's immune system begin to attack each other.

“They said, 'No one gets this. I suspect that's what you have,'” Mendelssohn recalls. “But with my luck? I had it.”

“There were no treatment protocols,” she says. “No one said, 'This is the plan.' I was waiting for them. ”

Eventually, she began immunotherapy. This is a cancer-like treatment that involves cocktails of drugs delivered via weekly infusions. For her, she had to constantly monitor the Epstein-Barr virus, as it could develop lymphoma for her. At one point, she also signed the virus, but thankfully it didn't make any progress.

“On Tuesday, there's one two-hour infusion and another on Thursday, and then I had a third drug for six hours,” she explains. “I feel like an absolute dog crap for two days and then I'll try again.”

The cycle lasted for 8 weeks. And the most difficult part? Mendelssohn does not know if the treatment was ultimately working. But deep down, she knew that if it didn't respond, she would face another liver transplant.

“I think when I first got admitted to the hospital, I already agreed to the idea of dying. “So when the second time came, I wasn't new to that concept. I was fine with that. I was happy with how I lived my life and never felt upset or regretted what I did.”

“After the first transplant, I really embraced every moment and took advantage of every opportunity,” she adds. “To be honest, I never regretted it because I felt that if I died I would be totally satisfied with the way I lived 22 years.”

Amidst uncertainty and physical challenges, she turned to Tiktok, relying on some to deal with it, some to document her experiences, and some to raise awareness about the often hidden reality of transplant life. The middle child with her older sister and two younger brothers, she was unfamiliar with wild comments. To go beyond negativity, she insisted on making a joke about herself before anyone else could.

“I'm not trying to inspire you,” she says. “I just want people to know the truth. This is difficult, and sometimes it's ugly.”

At first, she didn't expect her video to attract much attention. However, as they gained traction, this response gave her both a sense of purpose and a platform. Her candidness, dry humour and emotional integrity resonated with thousands. Some fellow transplant recipients, others were inspired by her resilience.

“I, Dan, there are a lot of people watching me. I can't just die. That's a mess,” she says. “I think we should at least go a little bit.”

“In the end, I decided that perhaps I tried a second port and didn't die at that point was a better idea, but I wasn't even a fan at all,” she adds with a laugh. “I was like, 'Damn, I suck this. I don't know why I decided to do this.' But I was already too far. And I was like, “Well… crap.” And I just went through it. ”

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

“I thought, 'I don't want to miss out on his graduation. That's a mess too.' ”

Still, she didn't live just for others – she was fighting for herself too. She explains that autoimmune hepatitis is not something you overcome. It's something you manage. “I still have it. I do it all the time. Unfortunately there is no cure. There is no much research either.”

There, her two close friends, Molly and Riley, intervened. They attended various elementary schools, but after meeting in middle school they became inseparable. In the summer she told them she didn't want another transplant, they were one of the first people she confided.

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

But rather than pushing her, they took action – they set up a nonprofit organization to support research and promote treatment.

“It's really, really cool,” says Mendelssohn. “The only time I've seen the disease speak publicly was to raise awareness of Tiktok. That's not so common, but it definitely sticks to me.

Currently, Mendelssohn says her health is quite stable. She plans to return to the San Francisco Bay Area where she will graduate from college.

Her recovery this time is much faster than her first transplant. “It took me 17 days to get out of the hospital last time,” she recalls. “I literally had to relearn how to walk. It took me a week and a half. Everything was really expanded.”

Now she faces new restrictions: no skydiving, no risky stunts that don't swim with the fantastic white sharks. Most people may shrug these limitations as minors, but for Mendelssohn, skydiving was a dream she wanted to pursue.

“I think I have to settle for virtual reality or something,” she jokes. “But I understand that.”

She clearly describes herself. “I'm a really normal gal. When you're in a situation like this, you learn how to deal with it. I'm not a very special, crazy person. These are the cards I handled.

“People always say, 'If you can't fix something in five minutes'… That's so true,” she adds. “In hindsight, there's something much bigger than not having a cake baked correctly or getting bad grades on a test. There's always another test, and that really doesn't make any sense.