Liver and Breast Cancer Awareness: Two Stories, One Powerful Gift

Sierra Donor Services (SDS) proudly joins the nationwide conversation about prevention, education, and healing around Breast Cancer Awareness and Liver Awareness Month. These important observances encompass SDS’s mission to help save and improve more lives through organ, eye and tissue donation directly in our communities.

Like those awaiting transplants, breast cancer and liver disease continue to affect thousands of people and families across the country. While awareness and early detection remain urgent, many patients facing late-stage diagnoses often require life-changing tissue donation or even life-saving organ transplants.

“Watching my son grow, taking his first step, speaking his first word; we wouldn’t have had that without the gift of a transplant. I wear my green Donate Life wristband every day as a reminder of the gift of life to my son. He received his life-saving liver transplant when he was only six months old. A split liver transplant saved his life.

– Reymon Hernandez, father of liver recipient, Noah Hernandez

(Pictured bottom right: Noah Hernandez (liver recipient) and siblings along with parents: Reymon and Alyssa Hernandez)

🎀Honoring Healing During Breast Cancer Awareness Month 🎀

“My husband and I met with a geneticist, where I was told I was BRCA2 positive. I chose to have a double mastectomy and immediate reconstructive surgery,” said Savannah Hall, tissue recipient. “It was about a week after the mastectomy was completed that my skin just didn’t want to heal; my skin was dead; it was necrotic tissue. At this point, my doctor talked to me about donated tissue. A lot of us think of lungs, hearts, kidneys, liver, and eyes. A donor is a selfless person, and I think it’s probably one of the greatest things that you can give to somebody you don’t know.”

Every October, SDS shines a light on how donor gifts that include skin, bone, and organs play a vital role in treatment and recovery for patients with these conditions:

• Breast cancer survivors often rely on donated skin and tissue grafts to support healing after a mastectomy. For many, reconstructive surgery is a vital step in restoring both physical appearance and emotional well-being. One in eight women is likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime; the need for tissue donors is significant. Donated skins grafts play an important role in reconstructive surgery, offering not just physical treatment, but a dignified foundation for healing, hope, and confidence.

• Patients with liver disease, including hepatitis, cirrhosis, or cancer, often depend on a transplant as their only chance of survival. An estimated 40% of U.S. adults are affected by some form of liver disease, with nearly 10,000 people currently waiting for a life-saving liver transplant. Many are not diagnosed until the disease is in its advanced stages, when the liver is already severely damaged. That is where donors make all the difference. By giving more than an organ, they offer families renewed hope and patients a second chance to reclaim their lives.

Sierra Donor Services encourages all Californians to learn about breast cancer and liver disease prevention in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Liver Health Awareness Month, and to register as an organ, eye and tissue donor to help bring hope to those in need, while honoring those who have given the gift of life and the many who are still waiting.

Sierra Donor Services encourages everyone to say ‘YES’ to organ donation by signing up today at sierradonor.org.