The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
New Fairfield woman gets ‘second chance’
Donor from Darien enables lifesaving liver transplant
New Fairfield resident Caitlin Balint was in surgery for 10 hours at Yale New Haven Hospital last week for a liver transplant. In a connecting room at the same hospital was a young woman who Balint calls an angel — Darien native Sophie Long.
Long, 25, donated 60 percent of her liver to Balint, 38, who was in the end stages of liver disease.
Since she was 17, Balint has suffered from autoimmune hepatitis (AIH), a disease she’s had since she was 17; and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PCS). Both are chronic conditions in which the immune system attacks the liver and bile ducts. She learned a living donor would provide her the best chances of survival, and that a healthy liver naturally regenerates in six to eight weeks.
Last summer, Balint began her search for a donor, creating the Facebook page “Cait needs a liver,” and posting on social media.
Word spread and almost overnight, about 100 people called Yale, wanting to be a donor, said Balint, who, along with her husband Dave, has a 7-year-old daughter, Regan.
“Yale was in shock about how many people asked to be my donor,” Balint said.
The intensive screening process then began. Donors needed to have either an A or O blood type, and be in overall good health.
Every first and third Monday of the month throughout the fall and winter, Balint would meet with the transplant committee to discuss the possible donors
and who would be the best match.
Balint, who is an interventional radiologist nurse, had stopped working at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Aside from the risks of a first responder, her medicial condition was getting worse.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do a 12-hour shift. I had severe cramping everywhere — my legs, hamstring, quads and groin,” she said.
Additionally, she suffered from edema and her legs would swell up with fluid.
“It would happen all at once. It was like a huge charley horse throughout your whole body. It was debilitating,” Balint said. “It would just come out of nowhere. Sometimes, I couldn’t move.”
One day in mid-January, while sitting in a liver specialist’s office waiting room, Balint got a phone call she will not soon forget.
“The nurse coordinator from Yale called and asked me ‘How’s the 26th for surgery?’”
A donor had been found.
“In that moment, many emotions went through me,” she said. “I was overwhelmed that this was actually happening. I was relieved, excited, happy, and in shock — all at the same time.”
“I’ve had this disease for 20 years,” she added. “I’ve always known I was going to have a transplant at some point — but to receive that phone call that it’s here, I don’t know if you’re ever prepared for that call.”
A few days later, Balint, who is a runner, stopped into Ridgefield Running Company, where she often shops, and shared the big news with owner Megan Searfoss.
When she told her the date of the surgery, Searfoss said she suspected who the donor was. Long, who grew up in Darien and is also a runner, had worked at Ridgefield Running Company over the past few summers and learned about Balint when Searfoss shared Balint’s Facebook post with her staff.
Looking back, Long said she knew she wanted to help.
“I think about all the things that we see from day to day and scroll by, and I was completely stuck on that post. I knew I wanted to try and be her match,” said Long, a former Darien High School math teacher. She grew up in Darien, moved to Stamford several years ago, and recently moved again to Boston to pursue her master’s degree at Boston University.
“It’s one of those things if I had a loved one who was going through something like that, I would want someone healthy to read that post and really think about it too,” Long said.
After getting support from her parents, she called Yale the following day. After undergoing detailed screenings about her entire health history, and intensive days of testing, Long learned she was a match.
Searfoss connected Long and Balint through text, and they bonded immediately through their mutual love of running. In the weeks leading up to the surgery, they spoke nearly every day.
Long said she wasn’t afraid at any point, nor had any reservations about being a liver donor.
“With all the months of waiting, it’s something that I wanted to do from the start,” she said.
Due to snow, the surgery date was pushed back a week.
On the morning of surgery, Long met Balint in person for the first time while checking into the hospital — Long was with her parents and Balint was with her husband.
After the surgery, doctors told Balint her liver was so damaged, “they don’t know how I functioned,” she said.
Speaking from the hospital a few days after the procedure, Balint said she already feels and looks healthier than she had in years.
“People say my jaundiced skin is already gone. I always had a yellow tint to me,” she said. “My liver enzymes are going down each day. The heart murmur caused by my liver disease should go away. The edema in my legs should go away. My spleen should go back to normal in size.”
Balint said she hopes Long stays in her life, and the two women are already planning races together.
For a recent school assignment, Regan was asked to write a story about a superhero, and she told her mother she’s going to write about Long.
“Sophie is so inspirational,” Balint said. “I hope to bring up my daughter to be like her one day.”
By the end of the month, Balint hopes to be able to do a light jog or run.
“It’s just a healing process now,” she said. “It’s like a second chance at life.”
Northern Correctional Institution, the state’s controversial “supermax” prison located in Somers, will close by July 1, the Department of Correction announced to its staff on Monday.
The closure is the first since Enfield Correctional Institution was shuttered on Jan. 23, 2018. There are 5,000 fewer people in state correctional facilities since then. The most precipitous decline has been since the onset of the pandemic; there are 3,377 fewer people in prison or jail today than on March 1.
“I have been transparent about my intentions to close facilities, ever since [Gov. Ned] Lamont announced that I was his choice to be the next commissioner,” Commissioner Designate Angel Quiros told DOC employees in a memo Monday. “The decision to close Northern can be largely attributed to the significant drop in the incarcerated population, as well as my obligation to the taxpayers of Connecticut to identify cost savings measures. The operational costs associated with Northern Correctional exceed most other locations, and the overall census has not surpassed one hundred inmates in the last six months.”
Closing the Somers prison will save the state approximately $12.6 million in annual operating costs.
“New prison admissions in Connecticut have declined significantly over the last decade, and the incarcerated population is currently at a 32-year low. This is even as violent, high-risk inmates are serving more of their original sentences than ever before,” Lamont said in a statement. “Spending millions of dollars annually to operate facilities for a population that continues to get smaller and smaller is not a good use of resources, especially as we work to reduce the cost structure of state government.
Northern was opened in 1995, when the state’s prison population was much greater and officials were having a hard time managing behavioral infractions occurring throughout the prison system.
Advocates have called for its closure for years, citing its declining population and status as a relic of a bygone tough-oncrime era. There were only 55 people incarcerated at Northern as of Feb. 1, 40 of whom were Black and 11 of whom were Hispanic. The facility was built to hold at least 500 prisoners.
“Northern is a monument to cruelty and systemic racism. In sum, it is a symbol of everything that is wrong with incarceration,” said David McGuire, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut. “It is critical that the state close Northern in a way that ensures it will never be opened again, and
that the money saved from its closure goes toward programs and services to help people most harmed by mass incarceration.”
Northern was the subject of a lawsuit filed last week aimed at preventing prisoners with mental illnesses from being sent there. The lawsuit alleges inmates with mental illnesses were shackled and isolated in cold concrete cells, forced to eat food off the floor, for exhibiting behavior consistent with psychiatric symptoms — symptoms exacerbated by the loneliness and isolation that is a function of life at Northern. One man was given a disciplinary
ticket for attempting to commit suicide. Another violated DOC policy by putting his hand through the trap of his cell door, desperate for human interaction.
In a previous interview, Quiros, who served as warden at Northern from 2009 to 2011, said the prison had “served its purpose. With the criminal justice reform that’s going on, the agency will have to take a look at what additional changes we need to make, as far as the programs that are housed at Northern, and then we’re still keeping staff safety, and offender safety, in mind.”
Quiros said during his confirmation hearing that he anticipated closing two correctional facilities due to declining prison and jail populations during the pandemic. Northern is the first; he said that the only facilities not on the table for closure were the city jails — located in Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven — and York Correctional Institution, the state’s sole prison for women.
Approximately 175 corrections staff work at Northern. They will not be laid off as a result of the closure. The DOC will work with the employees and their unions to send them to other correctional facilities, helping reduce overtime expenses and mitigate the need to hire new staff to take the place of retirees.
At least one corrections union was displeased with the news. AFSCME Local 391 President Collin Provost said in a statement that, “Front-line corrections staff are concerned that closing state prisons will prove to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Shoehorning inmates into other facilities will undermine safety and security in the prisons and create more difficult conditions for offenders and staff. We’re concerned that closing Northern will cause overcrowding, lead to more positives test results and limit the Agency’s ability to quarantine. The State and the DOC should think about repurposing Northern instead of shuttering it.”
In his internal memo, Quiros pledged that the “challenging populations” at Northern will be safely transferred to other correctional facilities.
“These populations have been managed at other locations in years past, and I am confident we can do so now,” Quiros told DOC employees. “As always, safety and security will remain a top priority as we navigate through this process.”