I am Jacqueline Hardman, Livia’s best friend of 14 years, and I am organizing this fundraiser for her family and also asking you to pray for them.

Livia’s daughter Zsófi is an amazing 18-year-old young lady who is kind and loving, full of life and ambition, determined, athletic, and fun to be around. Those of you who know Zsófi have seen her dazzling smile and beautiful personality firsthand. She graduated from Hawken High School in 2022 and is an engineering student at the University of Dayton. She has an older brother, also at Dayton, and two younger sisters at home. 

In the fall of 2021, Zsófi, who had just started her senior year of high school, went for bloodwork to investigate the cause of thyroid issues and was told that she had some elevated liver enzymes and high bilirubin. This started a long process of doctor’s appointments and diagnostic procedures that culminated in December 2021 with Zsófi being told that she had a failing liver of unknown cause and with no treatment available. At this point she had no significant symptoms and was told that in the future she might need a liver transplant, possibly within the next 5-10 years.

As 2022 went on Zsófi’s health declined, and by August, just as she was to pack up to start her freshman year at college, she progressed to end-stage liver failure, and the process was started to add her to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) transplant list. Amazingly, despite missed classes due to doctor's appointments and procedures and side effects like fatigue and stomach issues, Zsófi went on to complete her entire semester as an engineering student at Dayton. She was even able to take all of her finals in December and finished with flying colors.

When Zsófi was officially added to the UNOS in October, her parents both began the extensive health-screening process to determine if they could be Living Donors, a procedure during which a large portion of the donor’s liver is removed and transplanted into the recipient. As the liver is a regenerating organ, both the donor and the recipient liver will have grown to normal size within a few months. Fortunately, Livia was found to be a perfect match and was approved for the procedure just a week after Christmas. This allowed Zsofi’s transplant team to proceed with scheduling a planned transplant surgery for January 9th, 2023.

Both procedures will start at the same time on Monday morning with Livia’s surgery expected to be done within 6-8 hrs and Zsófi’s 12-13 hours. Livia will be donating over half of her liver to Zsófi. They will both be in SICU afterwards, and Zsófi’s hospital stay is expected to be 2-3 weeks. Zsófi’s dad will be her primary caretaker and stay at the hospital, then at home, for her long recovery, missing several weeks of work.

The upcoming months will be spent with frequent hospital visits for follow-up care and with learning to adjust to Zsófi’s medication routine and a new life with her functioning liver.

She will be on 8-10 different medications that will eventually taper down to just a few that she will have to take for the rest of her life so that her body does not reject the new liver.

Her immune system will be suppressed, so her family and friends will all need to learn a new lifestyle, living in a controlled and more germ-free environment.

This has been, and will be, an extremely trying time for the whole family, and your prayers and any financial support you give are much appreciated. The received funds are intended to be used to cover some of the upcoming expenses not covered by insurance and the long-term costs associated with continuing medical care, follow up visits, and medications that Zsófi will need for the rest of her life.

On behalf of the Karetka family, thank you for taking the time to read about their journey to this point and for any prayers and financial support you may be led to give to them as they move forward.