WASHINGTON—The good news came on Heather Knuckles’s wedding day: her mother, bedridden with a failing liver and kidneys, had an organ match.
It was the happiest day of their lives, Knuckles said, recalling her mother smiling while picturing a new life in front of her.
Instead, she said, what began was a nightmare.
Knuckles’s mother, Mary Ann Hollis, underwent liver and kidney transplants on Oct. 30, 2022. Five days after the surgery, doctors told the family that the donor liver had a previously unreported issue—a rare and deadly form of cancer.
Hollis soon had a second surgery to replace the liver, a four-hour procedure that left her fragile and in delirium….