News
Family has two children with Alpha-1 liver disease, faces financial disaster
NEWPORT, OR—Sophia Boyer erupts in giggles as she bounces around the great room of her parent’s Lincoln Beach home.
Bright-eyed and quick to smile, the 3-year-old plays happily with her older sisters, Tatum and Abigail.
She only turns solemn when her mother, Laura, pulls up Sophia’s T-shirt to exhibit the long scars that crisscross her abdomen, the result of a December 2006 liver transplant.
Sophia was born with Alpha-1-Antitrypsin Deficiency, a genetic disorder that affects the liver and lungs. Six months later, the infant was diagnosed with end-stage liver disease. Acute fibrosis had escalated into cirrhosis, or hardening of the liver, making a transplant a matter of life or death.
