Local Mother Of Three Seeks Living Donor After liver Disease From Crohn’s Requires Transplant
USA: Kaleena Shipp, a mother of three from Valley Center, is fighting to secure a lifesaving liver transplant after long‑standing Crohn’s disease progressed into serious liver failure. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota recently told her the only viable path to return to a stable life is a living donor liver transplant — news that arrived just before last Christmas and prompted her family to prepare for the worst. Medical teams say the condition has advanced to the point that a deceased‑donor option alone is not sufficient for her current needs.
Shipp’s illness has produced recurrent episodes of hepatic encephalopathy — so severe at times that family members describe confusion and “brain fog” that once left her lost in a store while driving. Those neurological lapses underscore the urgency of arranging a transplant. Care falls to her youngest, Kamrie, who is about to start high school, and to her own mother, Sue, and the household now endures exhausting travel: more than two and a half hours to Kansas City multiple times a month for specialist appointments and treatment because local services lack liver transplant expertise.
The emotional stakes are raw. Shipp wrestles with asking someone to donate part of their liver, fearing the burden it places on another person’s family, job and daily life. Physicians have framed the transplant as the only route for her to live any meaningful life going forward; she and her loved ones face a fraught calendar of evaluations and logistics while monitoring decline. Doctors warn that without a timely transplant her long‑term prognosis is limited — a reality that heightens the urgency of finding a compatible living donor.
Hospitals involved include the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and liver specialists in Kansas City who are coordinating care and assessments. The story centers on the transplant itself: a living donor liver transplantation is required to change the course of Shipp’s illness, and her family is appealing to the community as they pursue every medical avenue to secure a match and restore her health.
Video originally published on 2026-01-08 09:08:12
