BROWNSTOWN, Mich. (FOX 2) - Their daughters are best friends but the bond between two metro Detroit moms is about to get even bigger. One needs a liver - and the other has learned she's a perfect match.
We first met Elizabeth Wood and her mother back in March, when we learned Liz was collecting backpacks and school supplies for students in need. What their news story didn't share is that they were also quietly dealing with a deadly diagnosis - a genetic condition that left Adrienne, Liz's mother at the young age of 30, in need of a liver transplant.
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Brownstown woman getting living liver donation from daughter’s best friend’s mother
The bond between two metro Detroit women, whose daughters are best friends, is about to get even bigger after they've matched up for a living liver donation.
"Just, you know, wondering if that day would be the last day I would have with my daughters was the hardest part for me," Adrienne Mihuc said.
Her doctors at the Cleveland Clinic agreed she could be a candidate for a living donor. And that's when Liz's best friend, Roxy, asked her mom if she could help.
"She's like, 'Well are you going to try?' I said yeah, I'll try. I said but I'm not family so they might not take me," Nikita Ritchie said. But then she was not only the first to sign up and the first to get tested - it turns out she was a perfect match.
"It just so happens she is about as close of a match as you could possibly get," Adrienne said.
"Not to be a family member they said that I was the closest match that she could have," Nikita said.
Nikita will give Adrienne one lobe of her liver. Nikita's remaining lobe will re-grow and Adrienne's new liver will grow as well. Both women should be healthy and whole.
"Science is amazing and so are the doctors," Adrienne said.
Surgery was scheduled for March but COVID-19 canceled those plans. Now they've received word the transplant is happening on Monday, July 27.
The recovery requires staying in Cleveland for up to three months and they have to cover lodging, travel, medications and food. So now they're trying to raise the money to make it happen.
"There's not a lot of funding out there and due to COVID it really took a hit," Adrienne said.
Both have GoFundMe accounts to help cover the costs. Nikita doesn't have to stay as long but it's still quite an ordeal.
"I have to stay for three weeks. I stay in the hospital for one week and then two weeks I have to stay in a motel and then I'm off work for three to four months," she said.
But they have faith and hope and Adrienne is turning that into advocacy for organ donation. So few people are living donors and so many die waiting for a liver when they don't have to.
"If you can take the time off work, donate a piece of that liver. You could save someone's life. You could save a mother or a daughter or a sister or a brother, a father, anybody you know. Or donate a kidney because you only need one," Adrienne said.
As for their transplant, both women admit they are scared. They can't have visitors because of COVID-19 and won't see their daughters for a while but the sacrifice now is worth the life that they'll save.
"My story's not over yet thanks to Nikita and after we both heal from this, we'll have some good battle wounds and a very good story to tell," Adrienne said.
You can find Adrienne's GoFundMe account here, and Nikita's GoFundMe account here.