Teacher receives life-saving gift for Christmas

Byrd said that she has been battling health problems since 2003, when a week after finding out she was pregnant she also found out that she needed her gallbladder removed, however that surgery would have to wait until after the baby was born.

Several years later, Byrd was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis or PSC.

According to the Mayo Clinic website, PSC is a disease of the bile ducts that causes scarring from inflammation within the bile ducts that make the ducts hard and narrow, which gradually cause serious liver damage.

In most people with PSC, the disease progresses slowly and can eventually lead to liver failure, repeated infections, and tumors of the bile duct or liver.

According to the website, a liver transplant is the only known cure for advanced PSC.

“I would go through bouts of being sick,” Byrd said, “But the last few years, it just progressively got worse.”

She knew that she needed a transplant but unfortunately her MELD score, which is used to measure the seriousness of your liver disease, was low.

“My health was dropping faster then my MELD score was going up,” she recalled.

“By the spring of 2021, I got so big, so fast, that I looked nine months pregnant and was hurting all the time,” Byrd stated.

That is when she finally was able to get on the UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing) list, but she said that she still had no idea how long it would take to actually receive a liver with her MELD so low.

In December, Cindy and her family got the call they had been waiting for.

Byrd said she is happily married to her high school sweetheart, Jim Byrd, who is an electrical supervisor at Nucor-Yamato Steel Company in Jonesboro.

After graduating from Bytheville High School in 1988, Byrd received her bachelor degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro in 1993.

They have two children, who are now attending A-State themselves.

Their son, Cade Byrd, is a senior biology major with plans of becoming a dentist, while their daughter, Sydney Byrd, is a freshman majoring in nursing.

Byrd has been an elementary teacher for over 24 years now, the majority of which had been her nine years at Valley View Intermediate School in Jonesboro, however she has also taught at Blytheville Elementary School, Presbyterian Christian Academy in Blytheville and Armorel Elementary School.

She recalled that by Christmas of 2021 her condition had gotten worse then she realized.

“It was Christmas Eve and I was trying to get everything done,” Byrd said.

“My niece, Alysen Swafford, was over with her two-year-old twins, Reid and Remi, who are like our grandchildren,” she said trying to think back. “I recall everyone sitting up late and setting an alarm, but somehow it didn’t wake me up and I got up late. My husband and children had tried to wake me but they couldn’t wake me up. I don’t remember much of anything. I remember that I got sick and was talking but I guess I didn’t make sense.”

With her memory of the event still foggy, Byrd then asked her daughter, Sydney to help with what happened next.

“We had never dealt with anything like that before,” Sydney recalled the terrifying events.

Sydney explained everyone, besides her parents, had left for a little bit, when everything literally went sideways.

“She was uncoordinated and a little confused,” she continued. “She fell and Dad had found her unconscious and couldn’t wake her up, so he called dialed 911 and then us.”

Sydney said that she can still recall the moment she got the call and how her boyfriend at the time had rushed her home.

“We were supposed to have Christmas Dinner, but we got home to firetrucks and an ambulance,” she stated, noting that she found out at the hospital that she had HE or hepatic encephalopathy, a nervous system disorder brought on by severe liver disease.

She explained how toxins had built up in her mother’s blood and was poisoning her.

Cindy recalled that she couldn’t even remember her own name when she got to the hospital.

Cindy’s need for a liver was only getting worse, so she and Dr. Jaquelyn Fleckenstein, who had been her hepatologist since her kids were little, discussed a new experimental trial called the RESTORE Trial, which she explained uses discarded livers that are healthy but have a minor imperfection to receive an experimental treatment to make the liver suitable for transplant.

After a year on the trial list as a backup receiver, Cindy finally got the call on Dec. 16, 2022, to receive her new liver, but she only had a matter of hours to get there.

Cindy said that she and her husband had to rush to St. Louis, where they would spend from Dec. 16 through Dec 23 in the hospital, before spending Dec. 23 through Jan. 12 at the Mid-America Transplant Family House in St. Louis, where they had a community of support from people going through the same thing.

“They liked for you to be close to the hospital,” she laughed.

“It was a miracle. I haven’t had any problems since the surgery,” she stated, although she did admit the pills are a bit of a pain but many of them should drop off over time now.

“My family and I are grateful for all the prayers, meals and love we have received,” Byrd said. “God continues to be with us every step of the way.”

Although they were far away, Byrd said that they kept their children and all their family and friends up to date and were even able to Facetime with many of them including her third-grade students.

“I wanted to keep my students up to date too because I didn’t want them to worry,” she said.

So with the help of her partner teachers at Valley View, Janea Cook and Hailey Hicks Mohr, they kept the kids posted, she laughed.

“The kids would send me videos and I would send them videos back,” she said.

Cook said on Wednesday that a day has not gone by that Byrd has not asked about their school day.

“She wants to know how the children are and what they are learning,” she said. “We all miss her loving heart and upbeat personality.”

Hicks also said that Byrd is very consistent in her efforts to keep up with the students.

“She loves with her whole heart and it radiates to all those who know her,” she stated.

Valley View Supt. Roland Popejoy said on Friday that they were so excited when Cindy received word that she was going to receive the liver transplant and a new lease on life.

“Mrs. Byrd has such a passion for life and brings joy to our students through the care she shows them each day in the classroom,” he said. “She takes the time to get to know each of her students and uses this information to connect with them through the lessons she teaches.”

“I have observed her impact on students as an administrator as well as a parent whose son was blessed to have Mrs. Byrd as a teacher,” he continued. “We are thankful for all she has done for our students and her colleagues in the past and cannot wait for next school year when she returns to the classroom feeling 100 percent.”

Byrd, who said that she hopes to be able to thank her donor someday, was also informed this week that she was chosen to be on the newest NEA Baptist liver transplant posters.

“I want to encourage organ donation,” she said. “Please give the gift of life.”