WATCH ABOVE: Tessa’s video message about organ donation.
VANCOUVER – Fourteen-year-old Tessa Williams is currently on the BC Transplant list for a new liver.
The Grade 9 student who lives in Black Creek, near Courtenay, was diagnosed with Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma in the summer and has already had surgery to remove two-thirds of her liver.
Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma is a very rare form of liver cancer and only strikes about 200 people annually worldwide.
The diagnosis has been a long-time coming however. Since Tessa was five years old her mom Dawn says she had regular stomach nausea and pain, almost daily. This continued until she was 13 years old and despite numerous medical tests, doctors did not know what was wrong with her.
When she started high school, Dawn says the pain only got worse and Tessa became depressed and anxious. Still her blood work came back normal with the exception of slight anemia and slightly elevated liver enzymes. It wasn’t until this summer that doctors performed an ultrasound on Tessa and found a very large mass.
When doctors diagnosed the rare cancer, they removed most of her liver along with all her lymph nodes.
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But now she needs a new liver and has been placed on the transplant list.
It was only earlier this year that Tessa was also involved in organ donation, but for a different reason. Her friend, 16-year-old Ciaran Martin was killed in a longboarding accident near his home. His mom, Dawn and Tessa’s friend, decided to donate her son’s organs so six others could live.
“To turn around and need this, it’s just bizarre,” says Dawn. “We’ve watched the horror of the family go through the donor process and now we’re on the other side of it.”
“It can happen to anyone.”
Tessa decided she had to do something to raise awareness and hopefully meet her idol, Ellen, so she took to YouTube to make a video about her story.
“I want to spread awareness for Fibrolamellar and organ donation,” says Tessa. “To save someone’s life like mine.”
While they wait until their next appointment at BC Children’s Hospital on Nov. 17, in order to get Tessa prepped for transplant, Dawn says the response to their story so far has been amazing.
“It’s kind of indescribable,” she says. “It really makes you appreciate humanity. Pure strangers will send texts or Facebook messages.”
She says she has been contacted by people from across Canada and the United States with stories about their own brush with this rare cancer.
“It’s been one heck of a year,” says Dawn, “an unbelievable one.”
To follow Tessa’s journey and her progress you can check out the Facebook page Tessa’s Journey.
It only takes a few minutes to sign up to be an organ donor. You can sign up online at the BC Transplant website.
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