“When you have someone’s life at stake, it pushes you so much more,” the 18-year-old Kelowna student said Wednesday.
Quesnel is sweating to lose the weight in order to qualify for a life-saving liver transplant for a three-year-old family friend, Ashlyn Lang, who suffers from Tyrosinemia Type 1 — a rare liver disease that is getting deadlier by the day.
For over a week now, Quesnel has been tirelessly working out with a Kelowna personal trainer, Tracy Steen, and eating as healthy as she can to shed fat cells within her own liver and reach the 176-pound threshold.
She has lost five pounds, maybe seven, but has her work cut out for her to meet the deadline.
“The only thing holding me back is my weight,” Quesnel said Wednesday. “The heavier you are, the more at risk you are for a [surgical] procedure,” she explained.
Dr. Charles Scudamore runs the liver transplant program for B.C. Transplant and said complications can arise for both donor and patient from a liver taken from a donor that is even slightly overweight.
Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/health/Kelowna+teen+quest+shed+pounds+liver+donation/6519939/story.html#ixzz1t9SruXHy
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