A Yellow T-Shirt Helps Lawyer Tell How Organ Donation Saved Her Life
Lawyer Nefeterius McPherson wasn’t trying to rile University of Texas fans when she wore the bright yellow T-shirt of the opposing team at a recent football game.
Instead McPherson was honoring the West Virginia girl who saved her life, according to Texas Lawyer’s Tex Parte Blog. McPherson suffers from a rare bile duct and liver disease called secondary sclerosing cholangitis. Last November she received a liver from 12-year-old Taitlyn Shae Hughes, who died suddenly after suffering a brain hemorrhage.
McPherson learned the name of her donor from Facebook and met the family, the story says. McPherson gave family members engraved necklaces, and they gave McPherson the girl’s yellow West Virginia shirt.
After McPherson wore the shirt to the Oct. 6 game, she tweeted about it to WVU fans. She told of her bond to the girl, and showed a photo of herself in the T-shirt next to a photo of Hughes in the same shirt. The tweet has received more than 11,000 likes. “What I thought was a simple gesture for my organ donor has taken off like wildfire,” McPherson told Tex Parte. “I was really excited about going to that game. This is the best way to celebrate my transplant.”
McPherson had worked as press secretary for U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk until her illness forced her to leave the job last year. She is recovering in her hometown of Killeen, Texas, and hopes hopes eventually to resume her legal career at a large law firm in Dallas.
The Huffington Post and the New York Daily News also have stories.
