Aiden’s Story: Celebrating a Transplant Anniversary by Giving Back

For Aiden Pryluck, being 11 means performing rock music, playing ice hockey, enjoying sleepaway camp, and being an outgoing, energetic sixth grader.

It also means it’s been a decade since a liver transplant at Columbia saved his life.

Just a few days after Aiden was born in May 2014, his parents, Johanna and Michael, noticed their newborn looked jaundiced. After consulting with their pediatrician and a gastroenterologist, they were referred to Columbia pediatric gastroenterologist Mercedes Martinez, MD, who Johanna says would soon become “My favorite human being in the entire world.”

Dr. Martinez did further testing to confirm a diagnosis of biliary atresia, a dangerous liver condition in which the bile ducts are blocked. At six weeks of age, Aiden underwent a Kasai procedure to replace the damaged bile duct with healthy tissue.

“It was a scary time,” says Johanna, whose family was also trying to be present for Aiden’s three-year-old sister. “But Mercedes was wonderful and came in every day to check on us.”

Aiden’s liver numbers stabilized, and his symptoms improved. But at 10 months of age, he suddenly felt warm and limp, prompting his parents to rush him to Columbia, where they were told there was an infection in his liver. Given the difficulties of efficiently treating with antibiotics, Dr. Martinez felt it was the right time to perform a liver transplant.

“Before all this happened, I knew nothing about organ donation,” says Johanna. But the Pryluck family started to prepare for living donor transplantation, in which a healthy person donates a portion of their liver to someone whose liver is failing. Due to the liver’s unique ability to regenerate, both the remaining liver in the donor and the piece of liver in the recipient grow into fully functioning organs. 

Aiden’s father, Michael, was a match, and he didn’t think twice about donating to his son. “We felt better knowing Aiden would have a piece of him,” Johanna says.

A life-saving procedure

On April 7, 2015, the transplant procedure was performed at Columbia by Jean Emond, MD. Both father and son came through safely, and the following days in the hospital were a time of recovery and support.

“Everyone was amazing,” Johanna remembers. “Our doctors would come in and treat our entire family with the utmost respect.”

Within a week, the family was out of the hospital. Through follow-up care and regular blood work, they felt secure having the skilled support of Dr. Martinez and the Columbia team.

They also felt excited about moving on: Six months after the operation, Michael and Johanna ran a half marathon. At two years of age, Aiden started preschool on time with his peers.

“A transplant is something Aiden went through. But it doesn’t define him; it’s not who he is,” Johanna says.

Giving back by supporting research

Today, as 11-year-old Aiden continues to thrive, his family is celebrating a decade since his successful procedure by launching a fundraising campaign to support liver transplant research at Columbia.

“We certainly don’t take our experience for granted, and we want to do anything we can to help,” says Johanna. “A lot of kids aren’t as lucky as Aiden and have other issues because their immune systems get worn out. So we decided to do a big fundraising push for the 10-year anniversary.”

That funding is fueling much-needed work. After a transplant, patients take medications to suppress their immune system so it won’t reject the new organ, but those drugs can make the body susceptible to infection. So, Dr. Martinez’s research is looking for signs (called biomarkers) in each patient that indicate if they need more or less immunosuppression, and then personalizing a drug regimen to minimize toxicity and improve long-term outcomes.

“We see patients who are extremely sick, and every day we work hard and try to do the best for them,” says Dr. Martinez. “Research creates new ways to help more patients by developing novel therapies.”

And the Prylucks are committed to supporting these advances.

“Our 14-year-old daughter is now invested in helping to fundraise, so it’s become a family effort,” says Johanna. “We’re so thankful for everyone at Columbia, and especially Dr. Martinez. We hope to always continue pushing this work forward, fundraising, and giving back.”