After 23 years of waiting for a liver transplant, Miranda Lananger not only received her gift of life, but also had the opportunity to meet the total stranger who provided it.

Lananger, a resident of Cyclone, and her family recently shared the story of her transplant, which they consider a miracle.

Lananger had her story featured both in the Bradford Era and Olean Times Herald in July of 2017 with hopes the publicity would help find the match she desperately needed for a liver transplant. Her wait, however, would continue into the following October of 2018 when she was finally notified that an anonymous donor who was a match had stepped forward for the transplant.

The donor, later identified as Kim Schloder of Indiana, Pa., told others she had offered part of her liver for the transplant after seeing an advertisement on a Pittsburgh television station regarding the Living Donor program. Lananger met Schloder, who couldn’t be reached for comment, a couple of months after their Oct. 15 operations that were performed at UPMC Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh. Both women were nervous about the Dec. 19 meeting that was held in Pittsburgh.

“She said she was more nervous about meeting me than she was about the surgery,” Lananger said of Schloder. “I felt the same way.”

Lananger said she was impressed that Schloder had made the decision to get tested for the program after seeing the commercial.

“She didn’t even know me or see my Facebook thing” that outlined her need for the transplant, Lananger said. “She didn’t know anything about me, she just wanted to help out somebody.”

In a review of her life, Lananger had shared that she had been born with congenital biliary trisa, and was diagnosed with nonalcoholic cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 10. From that time on she had been on a transplant list through the UPMC Liver Transplant Program, which is part of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute in Pittsburgh. Several years ago, Lananger had “pretty much given up on waiting” for a transplant until she learned about the living donor program offered at UPMC. Essentially, the program requires a donor to give part of his or her liver to the recipient. While there is a recovery process, the donor’s liver regenerates and heals on its own while giving the recipient a new chance at life.

Lananger’s father, Scott Freer, had shared the story of his daughter finding a donor in a written speech to read to his church congregation.

The letter said, in part, “Miranda got to meet this wonderful woman who volunteered to have this surgery to donate half her liver to a deserving stranger desperately in need of it,” Freer had stated. He said Schloder had been watching the UPMC commercial last summer that promoted the Living Donor program when she exclaimed, “I have to do this.”

”(Schloder) did not hesitate, and her husband David told us the next thing he knew she was being tested and was a perfect match for someone that really needs this,” Freer said in his speech. “As we (learned) later that perfect match was with Miranda.”

Freer also told his congregation that he believed his daughter’s transplant was a miracle.

“But the main point I want to make now is that Kim (Schloder) was led by God to come forward to do this and was an answer to all our prayers on Miranda’s behalf,” Freer said.

Lananger, who is in her early 30s, is still recovering at the home she shares with her husband, Steven. She stays in touch with Schloder and her husband.

Lananger also noted that she is feeling much better these days, though she admits the first couple of months after the transplant were difficult.

“It was a little bit of a struggle at first, for a good two months I had a hard time eating anything,” she recalled. “I had lost a lot of weight from not eating properly and lost a lot of fluid weight.”

She does have more energy now, but continues to guard going out in the community for fear of catching a cold or the flu.

“I’m out at least twice a week because I have to go to (Bradford Regional Medical Center) for blood work every other Monday,” she commented. “And then on Friday night my husband and I go out and get our shopping done and get back home. That’s all I do.”

As for the Living Donor program, Lananger said she is grateful for its existence and its life-saving help.

“The program not only helped me, but it helped two other people I know of” as well as many others, she said. “They’ve had a lot of success stories.”

For more information on the liver transplant program visit the website upmc.com/living donor, or Facebook at upmc donate life: living donor transplant.