Family of baby needing new liver ‘hopeful’ after massive response

WATCH ABOVE: Family of Delfina Budziak hopes attention drawn by their daughter’s plight can help other families as well. Mark Carcasole reports.

TORONTO — The family of 8-month-old Delfina Budziak is “overwhelmed” by the response from people around the world who offered support, and some the possibility of a liver donation, after an online plea.

“More than 900 people have reached out through e-mail and Facebook with offers of help for baby Delfina Budziak, who is waiting for a viable liver donor to come forward so she can leave the hospital,” said the family in a release Friday.

That’s after only two days of family and friends asking the public for help in finding a living donor. They were inspired by the swift response to Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk’s public appeal for a donor. Melnyk is currently recovering from his life-saving surgery.

READ MORE: Eugene Melnyk’s public appeal could spur organ donation

Delfina, from Vaughan, Ont., was diagnosed at two months old with biliary atresia. The disease causes an accumulation of bile in the liver, leading to damage and a loss of liver function. She has been at the Hospital for Sick Children since April 26 due to a bout of cholangitis, an infection of the common bile duct. The little girl is too sick to leave the hospital without a new liver.

WATCH ABOVE: Ontario family pleads for liver donor to save infant daughter

“She’s had to go through way more than any eight-month-old baby should have to go through,” her father Peter Budziak told Global News Thursday. “She is incredible, I get my strength from her.”

Delfina is currently on the lengthy wait-list for a transplant from a deceased donor.

“She is currently stabilized by hospitalization and medication, and as such is not at the top of the list,” says a post on the family’s Facebook page, Delfina Needs a Liver.

A number of her family members have already been tested but none were found to be a viable donor. While the family is optimistic they will find a match for Delfina, they also encouraged those who reached out to consider donating to someone else in need.

“Delfina’s family has started asking people who have expressed an interest in helping their daughter to consider also signing up as a live-liver donor for other children, including Allexis Siebrecht, 11, of Winnipeg. Allexis has also been waiting for a live-liver donor and is the same blood type as Delfina.”

READ MORE: No match for Winnipeg woman who hoped to donate liver to girl

There’s also renewed hope that Delfina’s mother can be a viable donor for her daughter after all.

“The Budziak family is also hopeful, as Betsy Amores-Budziak, Delfina’s mother, was called back by the hospital to undergo a surgical procedure on her own liver in hopes to make her a viable donor. Results of the procedure are still unknown.”

Donors interested in helping Delfina must have the blood type O+. Those wanted to learn more about becoming a living donor can find info on the University Health Network’s Living Donor Program website.