Nurses experience a range of emotions when caring for patients, and nurse Jennifer Stasieluk was no different—especially when the patient was her mother.
Stasieluk stepped up, not once but twice, as a living organ donor for her mother, Marzena. Daily Nurse is proud to name Jennifer Stasieluk our Nurse of the Week.
Stasieluk’s mother needed a new kidney. She’d been diagnosed with kidney disease in 2015, and dialysis was necessary. But for a kidney transplant to succeed, she needed a liver first.
Her mother’s liver disease had been controlled for over a decade, but it worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic and was bad enough that a kidney transplant likely wouldn’t work.
Stasieluk, a nurse who has cared for patients in the most challenging times, through Covid-19 and cancer, was willing, even eager, to give her mother a kidney. They’d done all the scans and tests, but it wasn’t going to work.
Although they had the same blood type, Stasieluk’s mother is among a subset of patients called “highly sensitized.” She had a high number of antibodies against foreign tissues – a factor that increases the likelihood an organ will be rejected and makes it much harder to find a match.
“She needed a new liver to do a kidney transplant. However, her liver wasn’t sick enough,” recalls Stasieluk. “So, they threw their hands up and were kind of, like, ‘sorry.’ ”
But then, in January 2020, an appointment with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, introduced a new idea: Doctors suggested Stasieluk’s mother get a portion of a liver from a living donor.
Stasieluk insisted she get tested, and despite her mother’s protests, she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“I kicked her door open in the morning when I got that call that I was a match. I said, ‘Mom, I’m a match. Pack your bags. Surgery’s in six weeks.’ We couldn’t believe I was a match.”
On June 25, 2021, Stasieluk gave her mother a lobe of her liver. She spent five days recovering in the hospital, and her mother spent 11. For living donors and recipients, the liver has the unique ability to regenerate in a matter of weeks, and recovery was successful for mother and daughter.
Stasieluk’s mother had to continue with dialysis and was desperate for a normal life.
After the liver transplant, Stasieluk was preparing to donate a kidney to a stranger as part of a paired donation and went through another round of bloodwork and tests. But then came a surprise: Because of the effect Stasieluk’s liver had on her mother’s immune system, she could give her mother a kidney.
“We never in a million years thought I would be a direct match,” Stasieluk says. “I was excited about it. I knew I was in good hands. So I gave her the bigger lobe of my liver on June 25, 2021. And then a year later, a kidney.”
Dr. Timucin Taner, division chair of transplant surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, who performed the liver transplant for the Stasieluks, and his colleagues have been studying the effect of liver transplants on the immune system, including research into how a liver transplant before a heart transplant – not the typical order – can reduce organ rejection.
Taner says the Stasieluks are the first case they’re aware of where a liver’s effect on a patient’s immune response allowed for a subsequent kidney transplant from the same donor. They’re planning to write a case report about the procedures.
“She donated two organs a year apart to the same person. So she saved her mom’s life twice, says Dr. Taner. He says organ donors, living or deceased, are heroes. But unfortunately, there aren’t enough organs to provide for everyone who needs one.
Across the country, nearly 106,000 people are on the national transplant waiting list, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.
Stasieluk describes working long, late shifts as a nurse helping patients and their families during the pandemic. There were dark days when answers were few, and hope was sometimes hard to come by.
“Losing patients to Covid was devastating. I felt so helpless,” she says.
But donating organs to her mother – twice – was empowering.
“Just knowing that there is something I can do that is not hopeless … just having that power that I can do something and help her and save her life, it was amazing.”
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