LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – Fore more than two decades, Malinda Herrera has worked as a nurse helping patients recovering from trauma and neurological emergencies.
But last year, when she learned someone needed a liver and she could help, she stepped up.
“I feel like a very small piece of a really important big puzzle,” she tells 6 News.
Last year, she donated part of her liver – in what is known as a living donor liver donation – to another person.
Living donor liver donations are possible because the liver can regenerate. According to the University of Michigan Health System, up to 60 percent of a liver can be removed and placed in a person whose liver has failed. The section donated regenerates, and in about six weeks is the size and function of the original organ. The remaining part of the liver in the living donor also regenerates and returns to its normal size.
“Being a living donor, was an absolute privilege,” she says. “You know, we take our health for granted, I know that I did and it’s easy to do. So, having the opportunity and realizing that I had the potential to restore someone’s health by simply giving of myself. It was an incredible privilege.”