Table of Contents
The most meaningful present for Joe Stoyanovitch this holiday season isn’t sitting under his Christmas tree. Rather, the gift came Oct. 30 inside a Philadelphia operating room when the Lititz resident received part of a living donor’s liver.
But Stoyanovitch, 65, wouldn’t learn who had stepped up to save his life for about two more weeks. Wife Laurie Stoyanovitch, however, figured out the mystery the morning of the operation.
Mike Esch, a relative by marriage, said he wanted to keep his actions secret in case the transplant fell through.
“It was quite a process to make sure I’m a match,” he said recently.
The Denver resident signed up for testing after seeing Laurie Stoyanovitch’s April Facebook post announcing her husband was looking for a living donor.
“It prompted me to take the first step” the 45-year-old recalled.
Esch’s second cousin, Josh Zimmerman, is Joe’s son-in-law.
“He’s a solid guy,” Zimmerman said of Esch. “It’s pretty amazing he would go through all of that to give a gift of life. It makes you think of what you can do.”
Esch, a metal shop worker, said he stepped forward because a stranger from Germany donated bone marrow in 2007 for Esch’s father’s leukemia. The transplant put the senior Esch into remission until he died from injuries sustained during a motorcycle accident in 2011.
READ: Billboards, social media and more help spread the word for those in need of organ donations
Needing a donation
Doctors began monitoring Joe Stoyanovitch’s fatty liver in 2006, checking for lesions, he said, because he has Type 2 diabetes. He received a liver cancer diagnosis in August 2024 and had chemotherapy. But he needed a new liver before the cancer had a chance to return.
“We hope we cured him of his cancer,” said Peter Abt, Joe Stoyanovitch’s transplant surgeon who also serves as surgical director of liver transplantation at the University of Pennsylvania. Abt noted that transplant recipients must be free of cancer and other infections to be considered for surgery.
To spread the word about organ donation, Joe Stoyanovitch was one of several people to throw the ceremonial first pitch at the Lancaster Stormers game July 10. Joe’s bright green shirt displayed information on how to register to become a living donor — someone who gives up a portion of a liver that will soon regenerate inside the donor’s body.
At the time of the baseball game, the Stoyanovitches had no idea that Joe’s prospective liver donor was already undergoing blood tests, CT scans, MRIs, EKGs and stress tests.
Joe Stoyanovitch throws the first pitch during a Lancaster Stormers baseball game at Penn Medicine Park in Lancaster on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
Keeping the secret
While the two couples are not close friends, Esch and wife Torri used to attend church with the Stoyanovitches and have reconnected with the couple at family birthday parties and other events. The Esches, for instance, visited Joe Stoyanovitch in the hospital when he had his gallbladder removed in 2022, and Mike Esch and Joe Stoyanovitch spent a weekend in a Lewistown cabin six years ago at Zimmerman’s bachelor party before he married Stoyanovitch’s daughter Janae.
Esch allowed the Zimmermans to mention that he had begun filling out paperwork, but the prospective donor didn’t want to give the older couple false hope.
“It’s not about me. It’s about Joe,” Mike Esch said, noting that he didn’t want to distress the Stoyanovitches should he fail to qualify.
“Mike called me and asked me some questions,” Josh Zimmerman recalled. “He wanted to keep it under wraps in case something fell through.”
The Zimmermans kept quiet during an August vacation with the Stoyanovitches at Bethany Beach in Delaware, even after Mike told the younger couple he had been approved as the donor. The University of Pennsylvania, however, didn’t let Joe and Laurie know they had a donor until Sept. 9, Laurie Stoyanovitch recalled.
“Josh and I knew for two or three weeks,” Janae Zimmerman said. “It was a relief for us. We knew Mike wanted that special moment, and he wanted my dad to have that special moment.”
“We didn’t want to say something prematurely,” Josh Zimmerman recalled. “It was hard. We wanted to honor both parties.”
FROM 2024: East Hempfield Township man thankful for call that led to lifesaving transplant
A secret on surgery day
The Stoyanovitches started surgery day not knowing the living donor’s identity. The big reveal, however, came for Laurie Stoyanovitch in the surgical waiting room, when a receptionist called Torri Esch’s name so she could visit her husband before he donated a portion of his liver.
“I know her,” Laurie Stoyanovitch recalled thinking. “Why would she be here?” Both women cried when they saw each other, and Torri Esch sat with Laurie Stoyanovitch, the Zimmermans and son Dane Stoyanovitch and his wife during the procedures.
“Seeing Torri face to face was definitely a moment,” recalled Josh Zimmerman.
“We spent the day together,” Torri Esch said. Mike Esch’s surgery lasted about six hours while Joe Stoyanovitch’s procedure took about 11 hours.
The big reveal
Although Laurie knew the donor’s identity, she didn’t tell her husband because of the transplant’s emotional and physical toll, she said.
“I wanted him to be able to remember and have this experience,” she said.
That chance came two weeks later, when Mike Esch came to Philadelphia for a post-operative checkup.
Joe Stoyanovitch knew his donor was coming to see him. “I had no words,” the liver recipient recalled when Esch walked into his hospital room. “How do you thank someone for doing that?”
When Joe Stoyanovitch could speak, he told Esch, “I knew it was you,” he recalled, and explained, “I knew what kind of guy he was – he’s so outgoing and kind.”
“I was ecstatic that he wanted to do this,” said wife Torri Esch. “I think it’s a wonderful thing.”
FROM 2024: A year after newspaper story connected him to kidney donor, Tasos Marinos is enjoying life
Recovery
Donating a portion of a liver is a complicated surgery, said Kim Olthoff, who operated on Esch and serves as chief of transplant surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. A surgeon must seal blood vessels and veins in the part going to a recipient as well as what remains inside the donor’s body.
“It’s a very delicate and meticulous operation,” Olthoff said.
Mike Esch, who returned to work Dec. 15, said healing has been uneventful. “I actually feel really good,” he said.
So does Joe Stoyanovitch, although his future holds some medical precautions. For instance, although Joe and Laurie Stoyanovitch have much to celebrate, they plan to forgo hosting their annual holiday family dinner. Germs carry too much danger for Joe Stoyanovitch, who takes steroids and anti-rejection drugs daily.
“We’re playing it by ear,” Joe Stoyanovitch recently explained, “in case anyone is sick.” He is still unable to drive, lift more than 10 pounds or twist and bend.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I mean, I feel great.”
And he should.
“He’s doing very well,” said Abt, his surgeon. “You can take an individual facing mortality and you can give them a chance to live.”
HOW MANY TRANSPLANTS?
Here’s a look at national and statewide liver transplant numbers from Jan. 1 through Dec. 17 from the Organ Procurement & Transplantation Network. Go to UNOS.org, the United Network for Organ Sharing, for more information about how to donate.
All U.S. liver transplants
Total: 11,294Deceased donor: 10,654Living donor: 640
PA liver transplants
Total: 607Deceased donor: 493Living donor: 114
