Turning the Paige: A Liver Story

05/07/2026

Hey Paigers,

I will be competing with Team Alabama next month at the Transplant Games of America which will be held in Denver, Colorado this year. The Transplant Games of America is a multi-sport event occurring every two years and is put together by the Transplant Life Foundation. Similar to the Olympics, individuals will gather to compete in athletic events to bring their team a medal. During this truly inspiring week, transplant recipients, donor families, caregivers, transplant professionals and spectators will come together connect at the world’s largest celebration of life. To compete you must be a recipient, donor family or living donor. Would you consider donating to my fundraiser to help bring awareness to the importance of organ, tissue, and eye donation. I will be competing this year as a Division One Athlete (solid organ recipients). If you are unable to give please feel free to share this post!! Any help is greatly appreciated and means the absolute world to me. Can’t wait to show the world how organ donation has been able to save and change my life! If you do not want to donate through the link I can get your donation from you and I will add it for you! Love you guys!

By Donate Life Alabama

05/06/2026

Hey Paigers, we are almost a month out from the Transplant Games of America. This is a huge celebration that shows the impact of Organ, Tissue, and Eye Donation in an Olympic style games. I will be competing with Team Alabama in the games this June in Denver, Colorado. I am fundraising for this incredible event and would love your support. I’ve attached the link below where you can donate online, or if you would rather give me money or a check in person I can add it on the site for you! Any support helps.

By Donate Life Alabama

04/30/2026

Organ donation is so important. It’s something many people don’t think about until you have to either as a person in need or as a family saying goodbye to a loved one. I am here today because of a hero who gave me a second chance. I think of my donor multiple times a day because without her I wouldn’t be able to do the things I am able to still do. I am so thankful for her and her families selfless decision to have her last act be one to allow her legacy to live on through others. 💙💚 if you aren’t an organ donor I would encourage you to really look at if this is the right decision for you and to make it known!

Today is Donor Remembrance Day. The donation and transplant community is coming together today to honor and celebrate the donor heroes who have given the gift of life through organ, eye and tissue donation. We are sharing forget-me-not flowers to symbolize that donors and their legacy of generosity will always be remembered. also honors donor families and serves as a reminder that they are always a part of the Donate Life community. To see or "plant" a forget-me-not in honor of a Donor Hero, visit aopo.org/donor-remembrance-day/donor-hero-garden/. 💙💚

04/28/2026

Pictures from the Legacy of Hope 2026 Celebration of Life Picnic. All photo credit goes to LOH. The large 2026 photo is a group photo of everyone in attendance, then they broke the recipients into groups so you can see some of the liver recipients that were there, then there was a group photo for Donor Families (there was also one for Living Donors, but I believe I forgot to get that picture from the link by mistake), then the Legacy of Hope ambassadors group photo of some of us that volunteer as ambassadors, and the small 2026 group photo is a photo of some of Team Alabama for the Transplant Games of America. We will be competing this June in Denver, Colorado. You will also see Darcy (the therapy dog), she actually visited me in SICU just hours before I was told they had a liver for me and I’d be going into surgery the next morning, so she’s a special part of my story! I am so grateful and honored to be a part of this community. It was such a great experience to be able to see so many Donor Families and Living Donors there. This was my first picnic but it won’t be my last. Last year I had just gotten back to Huntsville from my extended stay in Birmingham right before the picnic and I wasn’t able to make it. So thankful for Legacy of Hope and the impact they have on Alabama an so thankful for Donate Life and their mission!

04/28/2026

There are multiple nurses in the MCCU and SICU pictures that took care of me! Congrats to these awesome people! They really go the extra mile and are some of the sweetest! These are the people who helped change my view on the medical field after I had lost all hope. This is a well deserved achievement!

04/28/2026

When I was diagnosed with ESLD (end stage liver disease) and transplants became the only option for survival my mom asked if UAB did living donation and we were told that UAB was in the process of launching their living liver program, however I wouldn’t be a candidate. Fast forward to last year, I joined a support group that UAB has for liver recipients, those waiting, or those going through evaluation and I met one of the sweetest, most optimistic, and caring individuals. She friends is the trail blazing patient who was the very first and the story of her and her donor is such a special one. Livers are the only organ that can regenerate itself and a large portion is able to be donated to a recipient and both livers grow back into a normal size liver! So thankful for UAB and the history they continue to make and thankful for the doctors who work tirelessly to help us. 💙💚

For the first time in Alabama, surgeons at the UAB Medicine have successfully completed the first living-donor liver transplant.

04/28/2026

Howdy howdy Paigers!! We got some good news today. My blood work has been holding stable since clinic. At clinic a couple weeks ago we were able to decrease the prednisone to where I was only taking it Monday - Friday as of today we are now decreasing that to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So thankful that my levels are starting to finally level back out and hold there. If y’all see me in the next couple weeks dragging along just know my body is missing the extra dose of energy but I’ll get back to normal soon! Please continue to pray that my body will adjust to the gradual decreases and we can finally close out this rejection saga and take the prednisone back off the morning menu.

04/18/2026

Got to attend my first Legacy of Hope Celebration of Life Picnic and ran into some of my liver homies. I’m so thankful for them and the community we have! Mom and Evan were also there but we failed to get a picture together! I also got to meet my co****le partner in person who will be representing Team Alabama in the transplant games with me in June in Denver Colorado.

04/02/2026

UAB Hospital has been named Alabama’s top-ranked hospital on Newsweek’s World’s Best Hospitals 2026 list, ranking No. 59 nationally among more than 400 U.S. hospitals evaluated. This recognition reflects the expertise of our teams and our commitment to delivering world-class care to patients across the region.

🔗 https://brnw.ch/21x1cRo

04/02/2026

Good morning y’all! I was discharged late last night and we ended up just getting a hotel in town in case something were to happen we would still be close to the hospital. They consulted the GI team last night and they said that sometimes when the material of the stent is changed it can sometimes cause immediate pain like what I was experiencing, so I was sent home with some medications and told to monitor it and follow up with my primary if the pain does not subside in a couple weeks. Now I’m just praying that my time in the ER waiting room does not result in me having picked something up. We tried to distance as much as possible and I was masked up the whole time so hopefully I will not end up sick. My nurses and doctors yesterday were amazing as always. I had a sweet sweet nursing student who was so excited she had gotten my iv in but it wouldn’t give any pullback and she kind of got discouraged, I said no you absolutely got it and you get the credit for it I’m just unfortunately not a good stick to count on and I was like but no you definitely got it I just don’t have anything else left to work with now. They had to send in their “heavy hitter” to try to get the IV in and he came in saying “they said you left your good veins at home today” 🤣🤣 I responded with yeah I’m so sorry I didn’t even think to bring them with me. April is Donate Life month, and part of the reason I get to be here with everyone still is because of the sweet caring funny souls working at UAB. If you aren’t an organ donor I am living breathing proof that your final act can help continue someone else’s story! I hope my journey can encourage those around me to see the value in taking the two minutes to register because that two minutes can change the course of someone’s life later down the line!