Blinded by childhood cancer, a newly engaged Chicago woman receives rare triple-organ transplant at Northwestern Medicine.
Jessica Lopez has beaten the odds more than once.
Blind since childhood after battling leukemia and eye cancer, the 32-year-old from Chicago recently survived one of the rarest surgeries in medicine: a triple-organ transplant.
While chemotherapy saved Jessica’s life, it also damaged her heart.
In 2023, after getting engaged, she learned she needed not just a new heart—but a new liver too.
And while waiting for a transplant, her kidneys began to fail. She now needed three new organs to survive.
Triple-organ transplants are extremely rare—only 59 involving the heart, liver and kidneys have been performed in the U.S.
“It’s unusual to find a recipient who we think we can safely get through this complex of an operation as well as to find really suitable donor organs for them,” says Dr. Benjamin Bryner, Cardiac Surgeon, Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute.
Dr. Bryner and the transplant team at Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute were determined to help Jessica.
And after a year on the waiting list, she underwent a marathon surgery.
“We did the heart and the liver together as one block and then my colleagues in the abdominal transplant team put the kidney in a little bit later separately.”
Today, Jessica is thriving with her new organs and celebrating 20 years in cancer remission. She calls it a second chance at life.
She says, “I’m feeling pretty good, like I never actually got a transplant. I have more energy, I just feel like I was reborn again.”
She’s doing the things she loves again like cooking, traveling independently
And planning her wedding with her fiancé Christian, hoping to marry in 2026.
Her advice to other patients waiting on the transplant list?
“Don’t be scared, try to ask as many questions as you have and try to get as much answers as you can, even if you end up bugging the doctors. Continue always being the biggest advocate you can be for yourself. “
Source: Northwestern Medicine
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