This woman needs a new liver. She's beaten the odds for 27 years — but time is now running out
CBC
For the second time in Janet Hong's life, a time limit has been placed on her life.
At 29, the Maddox Cove woman was diagnosed with primary biliary cirrhosis, an autoimmune disease of the liver where bile ducts are inflamed and destroyed.
Doctors told her she had two years to live.
Those supposedly final two years she turned into 27. But now, at 56, Hong said she's back to where she started as a young woman.
The disease has progressed, and she has developed an additional pulmonary complication, which requires the full-time use of oxygen. Without it, she can't walk or talk.
In a race against time — and chance — Hong is searching for a live liver donor.
"I am now faced with a liver transplant because that's the only way to fix this pulmonary complication," Hong told CBC News in a recent interview.
She knows the search for a living donor is a big ask, but it's her last resort. If she doesn't find a liver donor, she won't survive another 12 months. Maybe not even six.
"The transplant centre told me, 'OK, listen — you need to go public with this.' So here I am."
Hong's life expectancy has been uncertain for more than two decades.
When she didn't expect to make it past 31, she decided her diagnosis wouldn't define her and that she'd live a good life, no matter how long she had.
"When you're a kid in your 20s, that's a big thing kind of to say," Hong said.
Despite her sickness, Hong makes every day count, she says, by keeping a positive attitude and filling her life with experiences by travelling the world.
Travelling allows her to live a double life, she said: one in which she's a sick person and one in which she's a tourist whose reality no one knows.