northwestern medicine

Stranger Donates 60% of Liver to Suburban Chicago Man, Saving His Life

Chris Staehlin volunteered to be a living donor after his wife saw a Facebook post about Dan Droszcz, another suburban dad, who was battling advanced liver cancer.

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Liver donations from living donors are rare, and it’s even more rare for the donor to be a stranger, but Dan Droszcz is now cancer-free after a man he never met before gave him 60% of his liver.

Chris Staehlin, 35, gave Droszcz most of his liver to keep the 52-year-old father of three alive. Droszcz was suffering from advanced liver cancer and the transplant list was too long, so he needed a living donor.

His wife Nancy created fliers that were posted all over the south Chicago suburbs and social media. Staehlin’s wife Sarah saw a social media post shared by a mutual friend.

"She sent me a screenshot and said, 'You meet these criteria right? Blood type, age, BMI.' I said yeah I meet all that," Staehlin said.

The couple from Frankfort decided that Staehlin should undergo the testing to see about becoming a donor, which involves removing most of his liver.

"The liver is an amazing organ that can regenerate, and it can grow and take up space. So we have the opportunity then to remove a portion of a liver from a healthy individual, transplant it to somebody who is in need of that and both can survive and do well as those two livers then grow," said Dr. Justin Boike, a transplant hepatologist with Northwestern Medicine.

Once it was determined Staehlin was a match, it wasn’t a question of "if" but "when?"

"What it really was about was that we knew that Dan was a dad. They’ve got three kids, we’ve got two, and when we talked about it, we said if we were in that situation we would want somebody to do that for us,” Staehlin said.

The transplant took place Aug. 24, 2022. It was one of about 120 liver transplants Northwestern Medicine does a year, but this one between strangers stood out.

“That’s incredibly rare. We see that once or twice a year,” Dr. Boike said.

The generosity moves Droszcz to tears. “I can’t believe there are people out there like that,” Droszcz said.

The two met again on Monday, nearly eight weeks post-transplant, which is the same amount of time it takes for the liver to regenerate.

“Feeling great. The labs look fantastic,” Staehline said of his recovery.

Droszcz, now cancer-free, is feeling great too. “I feel amazing. I’m ready to live my life,” Droszcz said.

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