Son Provides Mother With a Gift of Life

Here’s a Mother’s Day gift that one mom will keep close to her heart forever.

Twenty-year-old Fernando Mejia has given part of his liver to his mother to replace her diseased organ, doctors said Thursday.

Alva Mejia received half of her son’s liver in a seven-hour transplant operation at USC’s University Hospital near downtown Los Angeles. The operation is the first of its kind in California, medical officials said.

Mejia, a 38-year-old mother of four from Glendale, had suffered from primary biliary cirrhosis, an immunological disease that causes scarring of the liver’s bile ducts.

Such damaged ducts force wastes from the liver to be excreted into the skin instead of the intestinal tract, causing the skin to itch uncontrollably.

For five years Alva Mejia could not stop scratching, officials said.

“My mom couldn’t sleep because of the itching. She couldn’t get up, she never went out with the family. Just watching my mom suffer every day made me want to do something to help her,” said Mejia, a Burbank security guard.

Added her physician, Jacob Korula: “She was scratching her skin out.” Left untreated, the condition would have progressed from a quality of life issue to life-threatening liver failure, he said.

The April 21 transplant put an immediate end to Alva Mejia’s misery.

“I feel very good now. There’s no itchiness,” she said. “My life has changed completely.”

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Dr. Rick Selby, the lead surgeon, said the liver sections in mother and son will regenerate to nearly full size in a few months and allow both to lead normal lives.

Selby said the transplant was California’s first right-lobe liver swap between living and related adults.

Past liver transplants have usually involved cadaver organs. But a growing demand for replacement organs has outstripped the supply, Selby said.

Today, living donors are increasingly sought, said Jim Warren, editor and publisher of Transplant News, an independent medical newsletter. “They can provide a perfect match, and somebody doesn’t have to die to give it. There are a lot of positives to it,” he said.

Fernando Mejia, who works as a guard at NBC television studios, said his mother will now be able to watch his siblings--5-year-old twins Melody and Brian, and Michael, 15.

His father, Fernando Mejia Sr., a waiter at a Hollywood restaurant, had hired someone to help with the youngsters during her illness.

The transplant solved Mejia’s Mother’s Day gift-shopping dilemma. “I’m off the hook this year,” he said. “Next year? I don’t think I can top this.”