The Challenge
After taking part in a living-donor liver transplant exchange, a father and his son are now bonded for life with two strangers.
A living-donor liver transplant allows a healthy adult to donate a portion of their liver to someone with end-stage liver disease. A living-donor liver transplant exchange starts when a person signs up to become a living donor without having a specific individual in mind for their donation. Instead, they donate a portion of their liver to someone on the waiting list who has an incompatible living donor.
A donor can be incompatible for their initial recipient due to anatomy, size, or blood type. However, their liver is still perfectly healthy to donate to someone else on the waiting list. If they do so, they're essentially able to help two recipients at once.
A few months after surgery, a donor’s liver regenerates (grows back) to its full size, and a donor typically returns to their pre-donation level of health. The recipient’s new liver also grows to full size, leaving both donor and recipient with healthy, functioning livers.
Meet Jeff Risinger
In spring 2022, while Jeff Risinger was searching online for ways to alleviate heel pain, a pop-up ad from UPMC about becoming a living-liver donor flashed across his computer screen.
The former senior vice president of Human Resources at a major Midwest health institution, Jeff R. had always felt called to help others. So when the same ad popped up again a few weeks later, he clicked through, read the information, and decided to do more research on living-liver donation.
“I knew if anyone could do it well and do it safely, it was UPMC because of the history that I learned about in my research,” Jeff R. said.
He signed up to begin the evaluation process to potentially become an altruistic living-liver donor at UPMC.
“When the pop-up ad first showed up, I had taken a diversity program course through my job, which talked about the different privileges that people may have, and I really started thinking about that,” Jeff R. said. “One of the things I thought about was that I have never lived a day of my life without health insurance, whether it was my parents’ insurance or my own. This is a privilege that I had that probably led to the privilege of good health."
At the end of the training program, Jeff R. looked for a way to do something responsible with his privilege. "I did not have the answer to that at first," he said, "but that pop-up ad kept giving me the answer.”
That fall, Jeff R. traveled from Columbus, Ohio, to Pittsburgh for his liver transplant evaluation. A few months later, right before Christmas, he learned he was a match for Jeff Hull.
Meet Jeff Hull
Nearly 30 years ago, Jeff H. of Millheim, Pa., experienced fatigue but didn’t think much of it — until elevated liver enzyme counts ended his regular blood donations.
He visited his doctor and was diagnosed with cholangitis, a serious infection of the liver’s bile ducts. Tests showed his enzyme levels were decreasing, and he began to watch his diet and feel less fatigued. But in July 2022, doctors told the now-63-year-old that he'd need a liver transplant in 10 years. Two months later, he was hospitalized.
Jeff H. spent five days in the hospital. Before his discharge, he learned from doctors that he'd now need a liver transplant within the next two years. His son, Josh Hull, tested to become his dad's living donor.
“There was absolutely no thought whatsoever on my part; my dad didn’t ask me to be evaluated as a living donor candidate,” Josh said. “Here’s a man that’s cared for me selflessly his entire life. He had provided me with everything I needed to be successful.”
When Josh learned he wasn't a direct match for his father, the UPMC Liver Transplant team had another idea—one that would not only save Jeff H.’s life, but also another person's, too.
Meet Josh Hull
The UPMC Liver Transplant team introduced the Hull family to the concept of a living-donor liver exchange. They explained that if Josh donated a portion of his liver to an anonymous recipient, the team would find a match for Jeff H. so he could still receive a life-saving transplant.
Josh decided to become an altruistic donor to be part of a liver swap so his father could receive a new liver.
“It was an easy decision,” Josh said. “The way that I looked at it was that now I could save not just my father’s life, but another person’s as well. If I was a direct match with my dad, who knows what Bob’s would have transpired to.”
Meet Bob Snyder
After reviewing Bob Snyder's routine blood test results, his doctor told him to immediately go to his local hospital. After four days in the hospital, test results showed that the Shippensburg, Pa., resident's liver was failing. A few months later, he was diagnosed with liver cancer. In March 2022, he was waitlisted at his local liver transplant center. Bob transitioned his care to UPMC and was approved to be on the transplant waiting list in September.
Bob’s cancer levels skyrocketed that November. On December 23, 2022, Bob received the phone call he'd been waiting for from his transplant coordinator — there was a compatible donor.
Bob and his wife, Elizabeth, traveled to Pittsburgh for the January 13, 2023, surgery. They stayed in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood at Family House, which offers convenient and affordable lodging for people and their care partners who travel to Pittsburgh for health care.
By chance, Bob and Elizabeth met his donor the day before their surgery. Bob was wearing an Anna Marie Island, Fl., hat, and a man in the lobby struck up a conversation with him because his family had traveled there recently. At 5 a.m. the next day, the man and his wife were on the same elevator with Bob and Elizabeth at UPMC Montefiore as they headed to Bob’s liver transplant.
“He said, ‘Can I ask why you’re here?’ and I said, ‘I’m supposed to be getting a liver transplant today,’" Bob said. "The man just replied, ‘I’m probably your donor.’ That’s how Josh and I met.”
The Results
Thanks to Jeff R., Josh, and the transplant team at UPMC, Jeff H. and Bob both successfully received their liver transplants in January 2023.
“There are absolutely no words to thank Josh for what he did for me,” Bob said. “I couldn’t be prouder being part of his family now.”
According to Jeff H., he feels 10 or 15 years younger post-transplant.
“I’m full of energy; it just changed my whole life," he said. "Everyone at UPMC is so professional and every aspect of the transplant was handled so well. The whole process has changed my outlook on life.”
A few months after the transplant, Josh, a former Penn State football player who played in the NFL for five years, and his dad decided to send Jeff R. a gift. Inside the box that arrived at Jeff R.'s office was a Penn State football, signed by Josh and his brother, Ethan, who also played for the Nittany Lions. Along with their signatures, they wrote, “Thanks for giving our dad a second chance at life,” on the football.
“Meeting the whole Hull family was the biggest blessing in this process,” Jeff R. said. “I call Jeff H. my liver brother because we literally feel like family. I look at the football every day and remember the time we shared together in the hospital. It was a wonderful experience to go through, the whole thing, including learning about the science and technology that’s been developed at UPMC and interacting with the UPMC transplant team.”
When it comes to his liver transplant experience at UPMC, Josh says that the care he received was “nothing short of phenomenal.”
“Every time I have gone back to UPMC Montefiore, I make a point to tell every single employee that I interact with, whether it’s the employee that greets you at the door, a receptionist, the surgeons, the physician assistants, the cafeteria staff, or the environmental services team, that I’ve never been in an environment that made me feel the way that UPMC made me feel,” Josh said.
“I get chills every time I pull into the parking deck at my post-transplant appointments and walk through those doors because I understand how impactful UPMC is and how many lives are saved there every single day," he added. "It’s a special place.”
Treatment and results may not be representative of all similar cases.