Kieran Cooper, 25, has had a rare liver disease since birth. It is called biliary atresia and prevented his gallbladder from forming normally. He received his first liver transplant at 11 months old.
At the beginning of this year, in his hometown of Northwich, England, his body began to fail again. A buildup of bilirubin turned his skin an intense yellow, a case of jaundice so severe that he compared himself to Bart Simpson. His mother, Kerry Cooper, said that one night he went to bed looking normal and the next morning she no longer recognized him. People would stare at him in the street.
He spent five weeks hospitalized before receiving a second transplant in February. He had to relearn how to walk. He now goes to the hospital every six weeks and will take medication for life. Biliary atresia affects one in every 8,000 to 18,000 births worldwide, and is more common in girls and people of Asian or African American descent.
