Whatever happened to: The guy who needed the liver transplant?
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Last March, I wrote about Joel Beeson, a journalism professor in West Virginia who was all set to be the recipient of a new liver -- via "living donor" transplant -- when the Cleveland Clinic lowered the top age of donors to 55, and his donor was older than that.
"It is unlikely he will survive long enough to get a cadaver liver," his wife told me. So they waited for a living person to donate a portion of their healthy liver. And waited.
Things got bad in September. He had a negative reaction to 68-80% of the general population pool, because of antigens he'd developed.
And then Rachel Fetty stepped forward.
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He got a piece of her liver in October.
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(Photo: Livr4Joel Facebook)
He was released from the hospital in November.
Unfortunately, I've so far been unable to get a medical update on Mr. Beeson.