News at UI Health

As a 6-year veteran of the Northern Illinois University Police Department, Julia Garcia-Martinez is used to putting herself at risk in service of her community. But that experience didn’t prepare her for how she’d feel when her mother, Francisca Garcia, was diagnosed with complex liver failure.

“If you aren’t comfortable in those uncomfortable moments, you aren’t going to be able to do this job for very long,” Julia said, who works in Dekalb, IL. “But hearing that your mom needs a new liver? That was totally different. That was really scary.”

Francisca’s condition stemmed from a combination of factors, including primary biliary cirrhosis and autoimmune liver disease. Her health was at the point that it was beginning to impact nearly every part of her daily life. She was itchy, her hands trembled, her legs swelled, and on the hottest days, she still felt cold — a sign of how much her body was struggling to regulate itself.

The medical complexity of her case complicated her diagnosis and increased the potential risks with transplantation, which is why her Hepatology care team at UI Health referred her to their colleagues in the Liver Transplant program, where the expert surgeons perform liver hepatectomies with minimally invasive robotic techniques.

“UI Health was the first program in the region to apply the techniques of robotic surgery to the solid organ transplant process,” said Dr. Mario Spaggiari, who also serves as the surgical director of UI Health’s Liver Transplant Program. “These capabilities — and our lengthy experience with them — give us the opportunity to tackle complex cases like Julia and Francisca’s.”

So, when Julia joined her mom for her first meeting Dr. Spaggiari and liver transplant coordinator Lisa Mariano, being a part of a living donor transplant began to come into focus.

“When Lisa and Dr. Spaggiari started to explain the living donor process and all the ways it would benefit my mom, it put both our minds at ease,” Julia said. “They laid out the whole process step-by-step and supported us every step of the way.”

Once the time came for surgery, it only took a few small incisions for Dr. Spaggiari and the surgical team to carefully remove part of Julia’s liver and implant the segment in Francisca, where it would re-grow to full size in 6–8 weeks. Julia, meanwhile, was fully healed — and cleared to return to even the most physically demanding police work — within the month.

“I’m not only feeling better, but I also see life in a better way now,” Francisca said. “What Julia gave to me — there is something extra special that we share now.”

“We’ve always been close,” Julia added. “But this has changed our bond, knowing that a piece of me is inside of her, and she’s here with us and feeling better because of it.”