A Chicago father got in shape– fast– to save the life of his baby daughter, who needed a liver transplant.
Eduardo Camargo’s youngest daughter, Jazlyn, was born with a condition called biliary atresia that left her needing a liver transplant. Camargo didn’t’ want his daughter to have to wait for a donor, so he went to doctors to see if he could give the 5-month old part of his liver. Doctors told him he needed to lose weight.
“There was fat or steatosis in the liver. So we counseled him that to be a donor safely, he would have to lose weight,” Dr. Talia Baker said.
“That’s when it hit me, and I knew I had to do something because I didn’t want my daughter to be on the waiting list,” Camargo said.
Camargo, 35, hit the street, running 20 miles a week.
“When I would be nauseous I would just think of my daughter, my eyes would get wider, and I knew I had to keep going. My thing in my head all the time was, ‘Please God, help me help my daughter,'” Camargo said.
The workout and healthy eating paid off. He slimmed down to 168 pounds, which decreased the fat in his liver. As Jazlyn took a sudden turn for the worse, Camargo qualified to donate.
The surgery went smooth, and a team of doctors removed about one-third of Camargo’s liver, which was rushed across the street to Lurie Children’s Hospital to replace Jazlyn’s failing liver. After months of recovery, Jazlyn’s back home.
