Kelowna mother waiting for liver transplant worries time is running out – CTV
November 06, 2025
Lyndsay Richholt needs a walker to get around, and has been largely bedridden while she waits for a liver transplant.
Ten months ago her doctor said she had six months to live without a new liver.
“They were quite concerned that I was going to die while on the waitlist,” Richholt said Thursday.
The 42-year-old Kelowna, B.C., mother has an autoimmune disease. She says BC Transplant’s scoring system—called MELD—failed to properly factor the impact of her underlying disease.
“They’ve also confirmed though that my MELD score is incorrect, so MELD score does not calculate correctly for autoimmune diseases,” said Richholt. “Our complications and symptoms just don’t fit into that paradigm.”
Richholt ultimately resorted to soliciting living donors online. She got more than 50 responses.
BC Transplant originally told her she couldn’t accept one from a non-relative. It has since reversed course on that, and done testing on two potential donors.
