Ezra, five, needed a new liver. Mum Karen never thought it would arrive with a quiet knock at the door

A knock at the door was all the warning Karen Toczek got before her life – and the life of her five-year-old son Ezra – was flipped upside down in the best way possible.

Standing on their doorstep, with a sign in one hand and balloons in the other, was a woman Karen had never met before. 

Her name was Carissa Fisher, she was Ezra's former daycare teacher, and she wanted to give him one of her organs.

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"My brain wasn't processing what was happening," Karen tells 9honey of that fateful day in May 2024, "then it hit me with a wave of emotions."

She and her husband Ron, who live in New York, USA, started fostering Ezra in 2019 when he was just a fragile little seven-month-old. 

In 2022 they officially adopted him, adding to their brood of seven biological kids, two stepsons and two foster children.

Soon after, they were told Ezra had end-stage liver disease and needed a donor.

Doctors placed him on the transplant list in the hopes of finding a suitable deceased donor, but "strongly urged" his parents to pursue a living donor.

"Most people wouldn't even realise he was sick," Karen reveals.

"What they didn't see was fatigue, difficulty sleeping, insatiable itching, and a very busy medication and appointment schedule."

Ezra's medical team was also located in New York City, more than six hours from the family's Alden home, and all the travel, childcare, and incidental expenses were costing the family a small fortune.

Still, Karen was determined to find Ezra a donor and took to Facebook, where she shared a post in February calling for financial support and advertising their search for a donor.

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"I honestly didn't expect to recruit a donor, maybe at all. It seemed like such an enormous ask," she says.

"We just hoped that someone would feel a tug on their heart that could also handle it logistically. We really did anticipate him sitting on the transplant list until there was a suitable deceased donor."

Instead, Karen got a knock on the door from Fisher.

The 21-year-old had previously taught Ezra at Precious People Daycare and knew she wanted to help as soon as she saw the Facebook post. 

To her shock and delight, she turned out to be a suitable donor match. 

Fisher secretly applied to donate part of her liver to the five-year-old, then surprised his family with the news.

"She and her mother had reached out to tell me that they had something for Ezra and asked if they could stop by to drop it off," Karen says.

She expected Fisher to turn up with some teddies or balloons, or maybe a donation. 

Instead, she opened the door to see the young woman - whom Karen had never actually met face-to-face while Ezra was at daycare - holding a poster emblazoned with the words, "Hey Ezra! Would you like to share my liver?"

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Ezra was over the moon, though Karen confesses that her son probably didn't understand just what his former teacher was giving him.

On August 7, Ezra underwent liver transplant surgery after a rollercoaster few months.

About 30 per cent of Fisher's liver was transplanted into Ezra's body; the liver is the only organ that can regenerate itself and can regrow to its original size from even a small portion.

Ezra didn't quite understand what had happened when he woke up and even mentioned saving something for "when he got his new liver" days later. 

"When we explained that he already had it, he was confused," Karen says.

She and Ron were anxious about how their lives would change after the surgery, while Ezra recovered hours away from home in New York City.

The transplant went well and though Ezra had to undergo three more surgeries and remained in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) for 40 days, his family couldn't be more grateful for Fisher's incredible gift.

"Not only did she protect him from having to decline while waiting on the list, but gave us the luxury of knowing and being able to plan ahead," Karen says. 

"Ezra was able to enjoy his summer before surgery and we had the assurance of a perfect match, rather than hoping for an acceptable match."

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