Darleen Ziegler Liver Transplant

Our mother, Darleen Ziegler, is a proud, loving and dedicated mother of 8 and grandmother to 14 beautiful grandchildren. It has taken almost one year for our mother to learn that she was suffering from a disease called Primary Biliary Cholangitis, a chronic, long-term disease of the liver that slowly destroys the medium-sized bile ducts within the liver, eventually causing liver cirrhosis. Over the past year, our mother has been in and out of hospitals due to this fatal condition and is currently in the final stages of her liver disease. The only chance of survival for our mother is liver transplantation. Our family has gone through many struggles and hardships to get to this point. A liver transplant is our only hope to keep our mother alive and well so that she can watch her children and grandchildren grow to be everything she dreamed of.

In May, she was placed on the liver transplant list with the University of Pennsylvania. At 1:00 am on August 22, we were contacted by the liver team advising us that a liver has become available. The surgeons will now remove our mother’s liver and transplant the donor liver. Unfortunately, because this surgery is very extensive and will require our family to undergo great financial hardship, our hope is to relieve some of the financial burden (traveling and lodging costs, co-payments and loss of income) and stress, in addition to raising awareness for PBC.

According to the liver team at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, our mother is expected to undergo an 8-12 hour surgery and have a recovery period of approximately 6-8 weeks. This will require our family to travel back and forth to Philadelphia to be with our mother during her recovery and for follow up appointments.

Any amount of money donated, over and above the medical expenses and loss of income will be donated to a fundraiser on behalf of our mother. ALL donations help, even if it is just $5!

Please keep our mother in your prayers and, if possible, consider a donation. We all thank you for your love and support during this difficult time, and look forward to a quick and speedy recovery for our mother!