Transplant helps save woman's best friend's life

CENTERVILLE, Ind. - An eastern Indiana woman has helped extend her best friend's life by donating a portion of her liver to her for a transplant.

Although the liver section doctors transplanted from Christie DeBruler Hill into Laura Alderson Toby ultimately failed, it helped Toby receive a whole liver transplant just days later from a cadaver.

Toby is now recovering from the two transplant surgeries at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Hill tells the Palladium-Item she doesn't regret her donation to her best friend since the seventh grade because if she hadn't done it, the 36-year-old Toby would have remained ineligible for a cadaver transplant because her medical history includes skin cancer.

Toby's post-surgery problems meant a cadaver transplant became an available life-saving option. That successful transplant happened on Nov. 18.