Anh Nguyen with Ailani Troncoso, the girl she helped save by donating 25% of her liver
Anh Nguyen had already donated an organ to save a friend. Then, he helped Ailani, a 4-year-old girl who was fighting for her life — and who needed a miracle to save herself.
After years marked by health problems and uncertainty, Ireland Troncoso4, is finally enjoying his childhood, thanks to the special gift of a complete unknown.
Today, Ailani brims with energy, but her parents, Amanda and Miguel, remember a very different girl.
“She It was like a shadow of itself. And simply I wasn’t living“, says her mother, Amanda.
Ailani was born with Alagille syndromea rare and serious genetic disease that was slowly destroying his liver.
“Over time, the jaundice got worse…she had a lot of difficulty gaining weight. She began to be fed through a tube. What caused him the most discomfort, throughout this period, was the itching”, Amanda recalled.
The disease caused bile to build up in the liver, causing a persistent itch that almost nothing could alleviate. Ailani was too weak to play and too bothered to rest.
Doctors at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego gave the Troncoso family some tough news: Ailani needed a liver transplant. Without the transplant, time was running out. “There was nothing we could do to help her. It was very emotional. It was very difficult,” Amanda said.
Then, a ray of hope appeared, he says: the doctors had found a living donor for Ailani.
“We were taking care of everything needed to get her on the donor list and just going to a routine appointment… I remember being silent… to start crying“, said Amanda.
The donor, Mr. Nguyen, 52 years old, had already demonstrated unusual generosity. In 2019, friend Penny Pride needed a kidney transplant. Nguyen didn’t hesitate to help.
“I was in disbelief, absolutely in disbelief, because who does something like that? But this amazing person did it,” Pride said. “She’s like a sister to me“.
Being a living donor is already rare; donating more than once is even more unusual. Ann Nguyen did something remarkable: she decided to donate again, this time to help a child who I didn’t know anywhere.
“The idea stuck in my head again: Is there anyone else here who needs help?. Maybe I could do this again?” said Nguyen.
The impulse to help comes from afar. 15 years ago, a traumatic brain injury gave Nguyen a deep understanding of suffering. “I had migraines every day, all day long, for 10 years,” Nguyen said.
“I know what it’s like to not feel good…and hope desperately that someone or something can help us. That’s why I decided to go ahead”, says the donor, a resident of San Diego.
When the portion of Nguyen’s liver arrived at the hospital, in a cold box for transporting organs, the Troncoso family could not contain their emotions. “I justI wanted to thank him for everything he had done and tell him that I hoped one day we could meet,” Amanda said.
Nguyen had planned to remain anonymous until she received a letter from the Troncoso family. “Amanda wrote a wonderful, beautiful, moving letterand it touched me deeply. I cried at but-la”, Nguyen said.
Months after the transplant, Ailani returned to the hospital with energy that the disease had stolen from him, and touched a bell that signaled the success of the surgeryalongside her family, medical teams and the donor who helped her survive.
“It is exceptionally rare. The courage it takes to donate a single organ is, for most of us, something difficult to understand… but going ahead and doing it again is deeply remarkable,” said surgeon Gabriel Schnickel, responsible for transplants, in a note on the Rady Children’s Hospital website.
For Nguyen, who has already saved two lives through living donation, the hope is that Ailani’s story will inspire others to do the same. “My biggest wish is that more people can have someone willing to help them“, he stated.
