Hamilton Southeastern soccer mom’s liver transplant saves daughter with cancer

Heather Boyle donated her liver. Ten days later, her daughter Brooklyn had surgery to remove a rare type of ovarian cancer.Brooklyn, a sophomore, plays defense for Hamilton Southeastern’s junior varsity team.“She was very selfless and put me first,” Brooklyn said about her mom. “So, when I’m a mom, I’d want to put my kids first too and make sure they know that they’re loved.”

FISHERS — Heather Boyle couldn’t contain her nerves. The same questions repeated in her head.

”How do you say this to somebody? What am I going to tell her?” Boyle thought as she drove down the I-90 from the Mayo Clinic to her Fishers home.

Since early January, the Hamilton Southeastern boys soccer team manager had undergone procedures to determine whether her liver was a match. Until Feb. 6, Bolye hadn’t talked to Autumn Grable. She didn’t want to elevate the hopes of her daughter’s former gymnastics coach.

But after Mayo transplant surgeon Dr. Timucin Taner confirmed what Boyle needed to know following four straight days of cardiac stress tests and MRIs, it was time.

Boyle called. Grable’s number was no longer in service. Boyle reached out to Jaycie Phelps Athletic Center, where Grable trained Boyle’s oldest daughter, Ellison, for Grable’s new contact. Boyle called again. No answer.

Anxiety morphed into sadness for Boyle. The news was too seismic to share via voicemail, so Boyle sent a text requesting a call back. A few minutes later, Boyle’s phone rang from inside the console storage of her husband’s gray Honda Odyssey. It was Grable.

The two engaged in small talk for the first five minutes, primarily about Ellison. Boyle proceeded to tell Grable she had read her November Facebook post in which Grable disclosed that she was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis at 12, assigned to the Living Donor Program and needed a liver. Boyle’s next three words gave the 36-year-old hope.

“I’m a match,” Boyle said.

“Oh my God,” Grable responded. Tears came from both ends of the phone.

”I didn’t think it was too much to ask of myself because I had the perfect liver. I had a blood type (O-negative) that worked. Everything aligned,” Boyle told IndyStar. “So, I felt confident and comfortable with the situation and happy to do it. And I would do it in a heartbeat again. I’m living proof that you could do it and save someone’s life.”

Boyle had signed up to save one life. But little did she know her sacrifice would save two.

A chaotic 18 days: How a cough revealed cancer

Mayo only does two living donor operations per month. Appointments for Boyle and Grable’s procedure were originally available starting in May. Then someone cancelled for Feb. 24. The clinic’s staff inquired about Boyle’s interest and told her there was “no pressure.”

“Yep, that’s the date I want,” Boyle insisted, filled with excitement.

“I was surprised by the quick turnaround. It showed her resolve to do this,” Taner said.

The Boyles had 18 days to get life in order. Boyle’s husband, Jeff, was going to be in Texas with their only son and HSE captain, Gavin. Jeff’s mother, Gail, opted to stay in Indiana to support the family and not return home to Las Vegas. Boyle’s best friend, Diane Ruscoe, booked a flight to Rochester, Minn. for Boyle’s surgery.

There was a plan. Then there was confusion.

Within those 18 days, Heather’s daughter, Brooklyn, had a club soccer match in Louisville. The HSE defender kept coughing after the rainy game. The Boyles don’t usually seek medical help when they immediately feel sick. But with Boyle’s surgery 11 days away, Boyle decided to take Brooklyn to the doctor.

Brooklyn tested for the flu, strep throat and COVID-19. While waiting for the results, the doctor decided to check Brooklyn’s stomach.

“It looked like Brooklyn had this ball that you could just pick up off her stomach,” Boyle said.

Added Brooklyn: “That was a wow, just like a bang. You could tell something’s wrong here. It’s not supposed to be like that.”

Relatives and friends were adamant: “It’s just a cyst, she’s only 14 years old,” they’d tell Boyle.

But Brooklyn had a Sertoli-Leydig cell tumor, a rare form of ovarian cancer. It accounts for less than 0.5% of ovarian cancers. The Boyles wouldn’t know this until the post-surgery pathology report returned. In the moment, there was ambiguity.

“I didn’t expect to go into the doctor’s office for a cough and have the next two weeks turn out the way they did for Brooklyn,” Boyle said.

Brooklyn did an MRI on Feb. 19, a day before her mom left for Mayo. Boyle sent the MRI results to Dr. Amy Hayes, the OBGYN who delivered Brooklyn, for clarity. While Boyle was preparing for her eight-hour drive to Rochester early the following morning, she received a text from Hayes recommending Brooklyn visit a gynecologic oncologist.

The unpredictable nature of life suddenly compressed all excitement for the transplant.

“Now I’m starting to get worried. I thought it was just a cyst,” Boyle said.

Boyle wanted to find a surgeon quickly. Brooklyn sent the MRI report to her neighbor Dr. Michele Saysana, who is also the president of the IU Adult Academic Health Center. Saysana’s husband, Chan, is a pediatric anesthesiologist at Riley Children’s Hospital.

Saysana called Boyle Friday morning while she was doing pre-op for the liver transplant. She told Boyle the general surgeon at Riley wanted an appointment with Brooklyn that day to do blood work and check for cancer markers.

“You can try to have as much optimism and be excited, but doubts crept in,” Ellison said.

For Boyle, more doubts started to creep in the night before surgery.

“Being far away was hard. I had a second thought about, what in the world am I doing, in part because of what Brooklyn might be dealing with at home,” Boyle said.

Boyle recollected herself.

“Then I was like, ‘Nope, going forward. I’m going to donate my liver,’” Boyle said.

‘Heather is that way. Whenever she’s needed, she’s just there’

On surgery day, the Mayo staff reminded Boyle of the risks, including bile duct leaks, liver failure and death. Boyle had the option to scrap the transplant up until the operation began.

Boyle gave a persuasive speech in her senior year of high school on becoming a registered organ donor. Her mom and older sister were nurses. Boyle was long prepared to donate part of her body.

“I wasn’t nervous,” Boyle said. “I know it was wonderful saving her life.”

She had one request, though.

“Don’t drop my liver,” Boyle joked as doctors pushed her gurney into the operating room.

Taner only needed Boyle’s smaller lobe for the four hour surgery. As soon as Boyle woke up, one question crossed her mind.

“How’s Autumn?” she thought.

Doctors found a blood clot in Grable’s new liver and operated on her a day later to resolve the issue.

Following the initial surgery, Taner visited Boyle’s recovery room to express how much Boyle’s decision to save Grable’s life moved him. Boyle’s family was just as moved.

“My mom is the most generous and kind-hearted person I have ever known, watching her decide to donate her liver to someone who helped raise me,” Ellison said. “I have an immense sense of pride that that was my mom.”

Ruscoe, Ellison and Gail each acknowledged that a transplant for a non-relative is rare. But no one was surprised.

“This was just keeping with who she is,” Ruscoe said.

Added Gail: “Heather is that way. Whenever she’s needed, she’s just there. She had never given parts of her body before, but she’s always given time, energy, effort, and a whole lot of love.”

Now, it was time for Brooklyn to receive the same time, energy, effort and love.

An ovary the size of a spaghetti squash

While Boyle was at Mayo, Brooklyn kept texting her, “Do you have my (blood test) results?”

“That’s what told me she was concerned,” Boyle said.

Taner let Boyle leave early after she told him about Brooklyn and canceled her follow-ups scheduled for the next week. Boyle returned home March 2. Brooklyn’s birthday was March 3. The blood work came back the same day. The cancer markers were elevated. Surgery was scheduled for three days later.

“My panic was really setting in, not letting Brooklyn see it, but internally, I was not a happy camper,” Boyle said.

For Brooklyn, she gathered confidence from her mom.

“She had her surgery right before me, so I was like, ‘If she could do it, I could do it,’” Brooklyn said.

Brooklyn’s C-section surgery lasted an hour and a half. Brooklyn’s ovary was the size of a spaghetti squash, but the cancer was fully contained.

‘Life is precious’

Brooklyn and Boyle recovered together. The two did face mask routines in the hospital, stretched together at home, tanned on the two chairs in their front yard and often compared incisions.

Boyle was back to work in four weeks. By the end of April, Brooklyn was playing soccer again. Grable’s recovery wasn’t as seamless. Boyle said Grable has endured “hiccups” and complications since the transplant, and wasn’t able to speak with IndyStar.

“I would’ve handled a complication if it had taken one away from her,” an emotional Boyle said. “I do feel a little guilty that it happened so quickly. She’s had such a rough time versus a new liver, new person.”

Brooklyn will have a follow-up appointment with her oncologist in October. Her cancer is in Stage 1a, but she “can’t put it behind her for a couple of years,” Boyle said.

Brooklyn gets scared at times by the thing she calls “my cancer.” But she refuses to linger in gloom. Thanks to her mom, Brooklyn’s journey has given her a new outlook on life.

“She was very selfless and put me first,” Brooklyn said. “So, when I’m a mom, I’d want to put my kids first too and make sure they know that they’re loved and have stable support.”

Boyle admitted, “I don’t know if I’d have been so urgent to get to the doctor but for the fact that l had to go to Mayo.” Brooklyn was supposed to play soccer the weekend of Boyle’s surgery. Every minute on the pitch would’ve risked a rupture.

“I know as time goes on, I’m going to look back and see even more meaning to that time,” Boyle said. “You sometimes feel there’s a higher power that’s like, ‘I’m gonna put this in your path to make you go this way.’”

Sitting at the light brown wood-stained dining table inside her Fishers home, Boyle recalls the hectic 10 days once more towards the end of her hour-long conversation. With Gail sitting diagonally across from her and the family’s 9-year-old golden doodle, Hazel, calmly rested near Boyle’s feet, the 51-year-old ponders whether her good deed was to save her daughter’s life.

Boyle then slightly lifts her head for a second. In a moment of reflection, she asks herself: What did it teach me?

”Life is precious,” she says, “and you have no idea what is going to happen and when it’s going to happen.

“You just push through. You go one day at a time.”

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