Brackendowns man finds donor after 13 years of illness

After 13 years of illness, Ryan Ellapan, the founder of the Salvation Foundation, finally had a liver transplant.

Ellapan became ill when he was 12 years old, and doctors were unable to figure out what was wrong with him.

Ellapan and his family have spent the majority of the last 13 years in and out of hospitals and physicians’ rooms, attempting to find a way forward.

During this period, he underwent multiple surgical procedures, including Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), insertion of stents, and gallbladder removal.

Ellapan’s family’s desperation to find help for their son led them to travel to India to seek medical assistance in 2016 but sadly their efforts went down the drain as they didn’t find help.

In 2018, after a gruelling seven years, WITS Donald Gordon Hospital diagnosed him with autoimmune hepatitis and primary sclerosing cholangitis.

Due to his uncommon condition, doctors and specialists were unable to make an accurate diagnosis shortly thereafter.

“My condition was unique because most liver diseases either have PSC or auto-immune hepatitis and I had both which was one in a million,”

His conditions continuously caused his infection level to remain above normal.

According to Ellapan, he suffered from cold fevers regularly, and his body temperature occasionally reached 42 degrees.

This led to numerous additional hospital appointments to maintain the infection as manageable as feasible for his body.

Things go wrong

While the medication has helped to some extent in recent years, his doctor informed him last year that he needed a liver transplant to extend his life.

“They told me in 2018 that I would eventually need a liver transplant, they were just using the medication to prolong the current liver. Then in August of 2023, I was told it was time for my liver transplant.”

He was scheduled for a liver transplant in October, with his mother, Sunitha Ellapan, as the donor.

On the day of the operation, they took her into the theatre and had to wake her up again an hour later because they did not read Ryan’s blood tests correctly, revealing that he still had an infection, and the doctors could not proceed with the operation.

“After the doctors found out that my liver had an infection, they said that my mother’s liver wouldn’t be compatible because they needed to cut a piece out but the piece I needed was too big and she wouldn’t survive after the operation. I was then told that I had three months to live.”

Ellapan received a call on March 8 from the hospital informing him that he had received a cadaver donor.

“We rushed to the hospital where I had to do multiple blood tests and scans before the operation.

I was waiting the whole day for the liver to arrive as it was flown in from Durban.

They informed us that once the liver arrived, they would test it before the operation. After a whole day of waiting, they informed us that the liver wasn’t correct for me and that we should head back home.

Finally a match

The next morning, Ellapan got another call from the hospital telling him that he had received another liver.

“I rushed back and waited patiently until the afternoon when they told me to change and get ready for the operation.”

Ellapan’s operation lasted eight long hours. It was successful but he received a liver which had a fungal infection.
He then had to get post-transplant care and had to be on special medication to handle the fungal infection as well as the fact of the liver being a different blood type to his body.

Ellapan experienced numerous difficulties following the transplant. His blood levels rose, prompting him to undergo a liver biopsy, which involved cutting a few sections of his liver to test.

His body rejected the liver for a while and this led him to be put on high dosages of steroids. This meant more scans and tests for him.

After the round of steroids, another liver biopsy had to be done and fortunately, everything was a success.

In the last two months, Ellapan went through over 100 blood tests, two liver biopsies, one magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), one electrogastrogram (ECG), one ultrasound, one liver rejection, one fungal infection, and spent 28 days in the hospital.

Today Ellapan is in recovery and hoping to get back to doing what he loves, helping others.