Surgeon surprises teen transplant recipient 15 years later

TEMPLE, Texas – Fellow freshmen in first period see her every day, but no one in Ashli Taylor's theater arts class knows what happened.

"Not to be rude, but kids these days... not a lot of them are grateful for what they have," said Taylor, 15.

Not long after she was born in November 2000, doctors diagnosed her with a congenital birth defect that caused cirrhosis of the liver.

As an infant, she needed a transplant to survive, and that organ came from her own mother.

"Not a lot of people — or my teachers — even know what happened," Taylor said.

So in September, she opened up about it in a creative writing assignment. Taylor typed a page-and-a-half letter to a surgeon at Baylor who helped save her life.

"This is like the most amazing letter," said Dr. Robert Goldstein to Taylor's mom outside the teen's classroom at Temple High School. "She is incredible to have sat down and done that."

Goldstein performed the operation that removed part of the liver from Taylor's mother. He drove two hours south from Dallas to Temple Monday morning to surprise the young recipient he had never met.

"Ashli?" he asked as he walked in with a small arrangement of flowers in his hands. "Guess who? Your mom's surgeon. You wrote me a letter, Dr. Goldstein."

Neither knew what the other looked like, but their eyes locked within seconds.

"Look at you!" said Dr. Goldstein, dressed in Navy scrubs and his hair in a ponytail.

Taylor wiped away tears.

"I almost started crying when I saw Ashli," he said.

A young liver recipient from Temple wanted to share her appreciation with the Dallas doctor who saved her life 15 years ago.

"Kids that go through the same thing... they don't always make it," Taylor said. "And me being able to make it, I'm just really grateful for those who helped me."

"She moved me to the point where I wanted to give back," Goldstein said. "I wanted her to realize her words had a real lasting impression,"

In the days after the September 11 terror attacks in 2001, a donor liver become available in another state, but Taylor missed that opportunity since aircraft were grounded. However, her mom stepped to donate part of her own liver.

"[Doctors] don't get a lot of 'thank-yous,'" Taylor said. "They need to know people appreciate their work."

Without that transplant, Taylor had only a matter of months to live.

On Sunday, she turned 15.

"So, I got my letter," said Dr. Goldstein as he folded the original two pages into a square that he slid in his back pocket. " I'm going to keep it."

The young woman understood the meaning of life long before she entered the classroom. A lesson learned from her letter is the impact words can carry.

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