Kindness. Pass it on.

That was the philosophy that inspired Wendy Amendolari to make a huge decision in a matter of seconds earlier this year.

Incredibly kind organ donors stepped up back in 2022 when Wendy’s husband, former Olympic ski jumper, Randy Weber, needed both kidney and liver transplants.

In honor of the donors who saved Randy’s life — and all donors who make organ transplants possible — Wendy decided to pay the selflessness forward and donate one of her organs.

At first, she planned to donate a kidney. That would have involved a relatively simple surgery with a relatively short recovery time.

But after a medical evaluation, Wendy learned that her kidneys weren’t ideal for transplantation. So, she made a split-second decision.

“If we can’t do the kidney, can we do the liver instead?” Wendy asked her medical team.

After additional evaluation, Wendy’s doctors gave her the go-ahead, and she embarked on a new, tougher journey.

“I didn’t even give it a second thought,” she said.

Living liver donations to strangers are exceedingly rare

Wendy became a living liver donor —and one of just a handful of people in the country — to go through a complex liver donation surgery to help a stranger.

“I wanted to give it to anyone who needed it. I didn’t care if it was an adult or a child, a male or a female, whoever needed it,” said Wendy, 44.

When she became a living liver donor on Aug. 19 of this year, Wendy joined a very elite group of people who have donated part of their liver to a stranger. In the transplant world, experts call people like Wendy non-directed or altruistic donors. And according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), fewer than 500 living liver donors ever have stepped up in the U.S. to become non-directed live liver donors. (OPTN started tracking data in 1988.)

Here’s a snapshot of data from OPTN showing how rare Wendy’s decision was:

• Altogether, nationwide, nearly 5,000 living donors have stepped up in 2024 to donate organs.
• Among living donors in 2024 so far, 435 have donated part of their liver, while the rest donated kidneys.
• Of this year’s living liver donors nationwide, just 63 stepped up to donate to a stranger. And so far since 1988, Wendy is one of 487 people to make the selfless decision she did.
• At UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, where Wendy went through her liver transplant surgery, non-directed liver donors are so rare that there have only been 16 in the history of the program, even though the University of Colorado has the largest transplant program between the Midwest and Utah.
• Living organ donors have saved countless lives since there are not enough deceased donors to provide organs for people on transplant waiting lists.
• Currently, more than 54,000 people are on U.S. organ donation waiting lists. The bulk of them — more than 34,000 — need kidneys, while nearly 11,000 need livers. Others are waiting for other organs from lungs to hearts.

Wendy has been exchanging letters with the recipient of her liver, and the two look forward to meeting soon.

In the meantime, she is bouncing back quickly from the first surgery of her life. She’s back to working full time at a medical office and the lifelong runner has already been able to start doing short runs again. Wendy is feeling excellent, nearly back to 100%.

An ‘extraordinary gift:’ Putting yourself in harm’s way to help another person

Dr. Trevor Nydam did Wendy’s surgery along with Dr. Kendra Conzen and said Wendy is one of a very select group of people around the world.

“It’s quite an extraordinary gift to put yourself in harm’s way to save another person’s life,” said Nydam, who is the interim chief of transplant surgery at University of Colorado Hospital and is also a professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.

“It takes a lot of courage, especially in her case. She understood exactly what was awaiting her on the other side,” Nydam said.

In addition to seeing how her husband recovered, Wendy has grown close to Randy’s liver donor, Kelly Williams, who supported and coached her through the experience of being a liver donor.

Before the surgery, Wendy and Kelly competed in a triathlon together.

And Kelly was honest about how difficult the recovery would be. Both women are fit and active. They’re used to tackling physical challenges whenever they wish. Kelly counseled Wendy that she would be very tired after the surgery, and she’d need to let her body recover slowly.

“I knew it wouldn’t be easy in terms of being physically restrained,” Kelly said.

“I told her, ‘You need to be patient. You’ve got to go slow to go fast.’”

Wendy took that advice and now is setting her sights on the next big life goal she’d like to tackle: doing a 100-mile ultra run.

Kelly stands ready to be one of Wendy’s supporters, as she did recently for a friend with whom she served in the Marines.

When Wendy told Kelly that she planned to be a liver donor, Kelly said she wasn’t a bit surprised.

“That’s who Wendy is. She embodies that generous spirit in everything she does,” Kelly said.

Both women say donating parts of their livers has had a powerful impact on them.

Especially in a world that feels divided these days, organ donation literally brings people together in the most vital mission: saving a life.

“It reminds you of the capacity of the human spirit. It’s truly the ripple effect,” Kelly said.

For donors, the remaining portion of the liver regenerates itself

The UCHealth transplant program is unique because Colorado boasts one of the highest rates of non-directed organ donors in the country.

“As a doctor, it’s wonderful to see special people like this,” Nydam said. “They’re giving life to people with chronic liver disease.”

Many patients are very sick but for various reasons, don’t rise to the top of the list to receive organs from deceased donors.

“They’re stuck,” Nydam said.

That’s why living donation — especially non-directed organ donation — makes such a difference, particularly for people who don’t have the kinds of networks of friends and family that Wendy’s husband did.

“The gift of being a non-directed donor is huge,” Nydam said.

Some liver donors now are able to have less-invasive robotic surgeries, which lead to great results and faster recoveries for the donors.

In Wendy’s case, due to her unique anatomy, she needed the traditional surgery.

“We must make a larger incision in the upper abdomen. There’s more associated pain, but Wendy’s surgery went super smoothly, without any complications,” Nydam said.

Altogether, Wendy had to stay in the hospital for five days.

Donors need to get a lot of rest and recover slowly but the liver regenerates remarkably quickly and healthy donors can soon get back to living their full lives.

“When you donate your liver, if you get through the operation without any complications, your liver grows back to its normal size and function. Within six to eight weeks, it grows back to 85 to 90% of its original size. It’s amazing,” Nydam said.

Living donor liver transplants: ‘We need more people to know about this.’

Wendy received word that she had been approved as a liver donor on April 1.

“It’s also our wedding anniversary,” Wendy said.

The timing had some poetic resonance since Randy’s medical issues triggered the couple’s awareness of living donor transplants in the first place.

Randy smiles proudly as he talks about Wendy’s decision to become a donor. He said he wasn’t at all scared about her surgery. And he knew how much she wanted to step up

“She was disappointed that she couldn’t be a donor for me,” Randy said.

“We need more people to know about this. You literally save a person’s life. And with living donation, many people get to meet that person and become part of their life.

“That’s the best part of this. It’s a celebration,” said Randy, who is in great health now, is working a new job as a car broker and is looking forward to a trip with Wendy next year to visit his son, Espen, who recently finished college and is living and working in Australia.

Along with Kelly, Randy’s brother, Geol Weber, stepped up to donate an organ, in his case, a kidney.

Wendy was thrilled bring things full circle.

When the day of the surgery arrived, she concedes that she was nervous.

“This was the first surgery of my life. I knew what to expect, but not really. I walked in, and the (transplant) team was amazing,” Wendy said.

Her surgery took about four hours. The only minor issue that arose is that her blood pressure runs very low since she’s an athlete. That affected the medications she could receive after the surgery, but otherwise, Wendy’s surgery was routine.

After returning home, she had to baby her core muscles and her scar.

“Everything that you know as normal is no longer normal. You have to accept help, and I was so tired for the first two weeks,” she said.

By eight weeks after her surgery, she was able to start jogging slowly for short distances.

Wendy has loved being on both sides of the transplant equation. She was thrilled and relieved, of course, when Kelly and Geol saved Randy. And now, the feeling of donating has been amazing too.

“It’s really gratifying. It makes you humble and grateful. After going through this, I have even more respect for what Kelly did. And I feel lucky that I was healthy enough to share part of my liver.”

Her message to others who are pondering organ donation is clear. Consider stepping up.

“If you’re healthy, you can do this. Yes, it’s scary. You might never have thought about it before. But your liver regenerates.”

Interestingly, by giving up a part of her body, Wendy experienced a surprising result.

“It makes you feel complete.”