A Life Changing Choice: A liver for Karla: Dying for a match

EDITORS NOTE: This series was produced by veteran CTV Atlantic anchor and reporter Bruce Frisko, documenting his sister's successful liver transplant surgery in May of 2022. Karla Frisko found a match in Scott Watson, a co-worker who was inspired to sign up for living donor testing after hearing her story. Although liver transplants are performed across Canada, living donor programs are not available in some provinces.

It's hard to know what to pack when you don't know how long you'll be in hospital, but like scores of transplant patients, Karla Frisko, my sister, was giving it her best shot on Sunday, May 1 in Edmonton.

Having made her home in Calgary, Alta., since 2002, she'd booked an AirBnB for a month in the provincial capital, but would ultimately wind-up staying 10 weeks.

Just a couple of hours earlier, she was relieved to learn Scott Watson, her living donor, had tested negative for COVID-19.

A previous test had come back “indeterminate.”

"It's not positive. It's not negative. It's basically, there's no response," Scott explained to Karla via FaceTime.

Living with severe Crohn's-Colitis all of her adult life, Karla developed primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) in 2016.

The disease, which causes a narrowing of the bile ducts, is considered quite rare and there's no cure: a transplant is the only remedy.

Although increasingly sick, her condition wasn't considered severe enough to make her eligible for a donation from a deceased donor, so the hunt began to find someone willing to donate through Alberta's Living Donor Program.

Scott Watson, a co-worker who'd never met Karla in person, was inspired to get tested as a potential donor after hearing her story, and the match turned out to be perfect.

A remarkable organ, a donor liver will regenerate and grow back.

The Liver foundation says there were close to 600 transplants performed in Canada in 2021, but more than 500 on the wait-list.

"Right now, about one in four Canadians may be affected by liver disease," said Nem Maksimovic, senior manager of support and education at the Canadian Liver Foundation.

"Nationally, the entire country has been experiencing a shortage and that impacts greatly the amount of transplants that can be completed -- how many surgeries can be completed," said Maksimovic.

"And how many folks end up waiting, and in some cases, dying on the transplant list."

All of this hard on our 82-year-old dad, Ed Frisko, a retired Saskatchewan farmer.

For nearly 30 years during her battle with Crohn's-Colitis, he's been powerless to do anything to help his only daughter.

Now, there's hope of dealing with the more urgent PSC.

"Well, I'm feeling good," he says.

"I'm happy that Karla's finally going to get in and get looked after."

"This has been going on a long time, right?" I ask.

"Yes -- ever since she's was in her teens," he says.

"It's been a long time."

By late afternoon, we're ready to take Karla to the University of Alberta Hospital, where the surgery will take place the next morning.

Dad insists on carrying her bag -- we're all looking for ways to be helpful at a time when none of us know what to expect.

For her part, Karla expresses gratitude at getting to this point.

"I'm very overwhelmed by the people who have reached out to give me their support," she says.

I probably should have let people know this was going on a little bit sooner, and perhaps maybe we would have had a bigger pool of testing."

After admission, visitation is strictly limited, and Karla's alone with her thoughts, which are occasionally overwhelming.

And as night falls on the sprawling University of Alberta Hospital, we wait, giving it our best shot to be grateful -- and patient.