March 18, 2020 / By Mike Hixenbaugh
From the moment of his birth in 1987, Zach Branson has struggled with a rare disease that causes bile to back up in his body, slowly devastating his liver. Doctors operated when he was a newborn, but they told his parents that the surgery could only delay the disease’s progress.
By last May, after three decades of repeated health scares and unlikely recoveries, time was finally running out. Branson, 33, of Whitewater, Colorado, needed a new liver, his doctors told him, and he needed one soon.
Late last month, he got the news he’d been praying for. His uncle, Troy Branson, 45, had passed all the required tests. Doctors at the UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital in Denver would remove part of Troy’s liver and implant it in his nephew, potentially adding years to his life.
The transplant surgery was scheduled for March 25.
“It meant everything to me,” Branson said. “After struggling with my health for my entire life, it felt like I was getting another chance.”
But that was before the new coronavirus began spreading widely in the United States, upending routine life across the nation and forcing hospital administrators to begin making difficult decisions about how best to deploy limited medical resources. These choices could be particularly devastating for the tens of thousands of Americans awaiting new organs, transplant experts said.
