Rare triple transplant surgeries bond patients
CHICAGO — A suburban Detroit woman and South Side Chicago man are recovering in a Chicago hospital following rare triple transplant surgeries that gave each the healthy heart, liver and kidney they needed — and a new friendship they never expected.
University of Chicago Medicine doctors announced Friday that they successfully completed the triple organ transplants on Sarah Mcpharlin, a 29-year-old woman of Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, and Daru Smith, a 29-year-old father from Chicago’s South Side, within 30 hours of one another.
Just eight minutes after a medical team finished Smith’s liver transplant on Dec. 20, hospital staff learned that donor organs were available for Mcpharlin. Smith became only the 16th person in the U.S. to undergo a heart-liverkidney transplant, and hours later on Dec. 21 Mcpharlin became the 17th. Each surgery required a 22-person team, with some staffers working on both patients. The hospital, which has performed the most heart-liver-kidney transplants in the world, also performed five other organ transplants during that time period.
Smith and Mcpharlin, who had her first heart transplant at the age of 12, arrived at the Chicago hospital in November. But neither knew they were both seeking a triple transplant when they first met during pre-therapy sessions ahead of surgery. The sessions were quiet, and patients didn’t share details about their transplants. But Mcpharlin’s mother pried out of Smith that he was awaiting the same organs as Mcpharlin.
“It’s been mindblowing and amazing, having someone go through the process with me, gave me more motivation,” Smith, a truck driver, said during a video interview at the hospital Friday.
The pair, who are recovering on the same hospital floor, share walks and give each other high-fives when they pass one another in the hallways. Their families are already planning a dinner together in the city once the two are released and feeling better.
“It was so cool to know we would be able to see each other progress together,” Mcpharlin, an occupational therapist, said Friday. “It was really cool to see how Daru was getting up in the hall and I knew eventually, or pretty soon, I would be doing the same.”