College pitcher recovering after saving mother with liver transplant

The first time Joey Carney saw his mother after life-saving surgery in which she received part of his liver, she came to him.

It was June 4, two days after the transplant, and the University of San Francisco pitcher was nauseous from medication and in a significant amount of pain.

“I said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t get up to see her,’” Carney recalled. “A little while later, there she is at my door. I couldn’t believe it.”

Paula Carney, 50, required the transplant because non-alcoholic steatohepatitis had left her with end-stage liver cirrhosis.

Read the full story about Joey’s life-saving transplant »

The surgery, performed at the UC San Francisco Medical Center, took place two years and three months after she was told she might have two years to live — and after several other family members were ruled out as donors.

After the transplant, her husband, Dale, said he was told by the medical team that Paula’s liver had been reduced to something resembling a puddle. He was also told she would not have lived to her next birthday, in mid-July.

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Joey Carney, 22, a relief pitcher for the University of San Francisco, is the team’s closer, called on to save games.  His biggest save, however,  came away from the playing field, when Carney donated a portion of his liver to mother, Paula.

Paula bounced back quickly in the days immediately after the surgery but has since experienced some setbacks and is still hospitalized.

Joey returned to the family’s Millbrae, Calif., home June 7 and recently has been walking more than three miles a day. “In a lot of ways I’m almost back to normal,” he said. “I’m showering and getting dressed by myself and have been going somewhere with friends just about every day.”

This past spring, Carney made an unlikely rise to become closer for San Francisco’s baseball team.

Formerly an outfielder, he enrolled in school without a scholarship, then became the first player in at least 18 years to make the team through an open tryout.

As the season progressed, USF started to rely on him when the Dons were trying to hold slim leads in the late innings. He responded by converting all five of his save opportunities.

“An amazing story even before the transplant,” Coach Nino Giarratano said.

When his mother was ill, Carney would make time for nightly bedside chats with her after he returned from long days of baseball workouts and school.

Now he’s anticipating having talks with her during long walks as they both recover.

“That’s going to be a much different deal,” he said. “Before, it was like she was getting a little worse every day. Now we’ll both be getting better.”

mike.hiserman@latimes.com

Twitter: @MikeHiserman