NewsdayTV's Amy McGorry reunites with her liver transplant match, a fellow St. Francis Prep alum Sue Filshie

On the night of March 21, NewsdayTV anchor Amy McGorry sat at a full table at Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury to support her sister, Regan McGorry, who was being inducted to their alma mater’s sports Hall of Fame.

Amy McGorry, who has had two autoimmune diseases since she was in college, had recently been told she would need a new liver, and had taken to social media 10 days earlier to find a living donor match.

"Everyone was like, 'I hope you find a donor,' " she recalled people telling her at the St. Francis Preparatory School's Ring of Honor event.

Little did McGorry know that at that moment, sitting at a table over, another Hall of Fame recipient and former classmate, Sue Filshie, was in the process of testing — and would be the match needed to save her life.

"You've been this little angel around the periphery of the family, and then all of a sudden I'm like, 'oh my gosh, it's you ... Thank God it’s her,' " McGorry said to Filshie when they reunited for the first time since the June 9 surgery. "To go through it with you made it so much easier."

Filshie, who had remained publicly anonymous until now, told Newsday alongside McGorry on Wednesday they were coming forward to spread awareness and educate others about the liver donation process.

"A lot of people said to me, 'Sue, you know, I would do that for like a family member. I'm not so sure about a friend,' and I said, 'you know, what's the difference?' " Filshie, 55, of Floral Park, said. "It’s someone’s life."

McGorry and Filshie said they first met when they were 12 and 10, respectively, at tennis camp, where they were doubles partners.

They both went on to attend high school at St. Francis Prep in Fresh Meadows, Queens. Filshie became friends with McGorry’s sisters Regan and Sarah and later lived with them when the three attended college at the University of Scranton.

Condition worsened

McGorry and Filshie would occasionally speak over the years though McGorry said she mostly kept her health issues private.

For decades, McGorry said she was stable with her two autoimmune diseases: autoimmune hepatitis and primary biliary cholangitis, a disease of the bile ducts that causes them to scar and narrow.

She's had a series of health episodes since last summer that worsened her condition. In February, she was told she needed a new liver.

Doctors suggested McGorry tap into her network to find a donor because having another episode could cause severe health failure. McGorry said she was surprised to learn that despite her episodes, she was given a low severity score and it would take up to two years to get a new liver.

According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which maintains a national organ registry, about 9,000 people in the United States are on the waiting list for a liver. About 1,700 die each year while waiting for a liver transplant, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

"That's when I thought, who else is dealing with this? I'm overwhelmed by it, and I had a big network of support," McGorry said on her inspiration to make a public plea for a live donor. "What about the person who's laying in the bed who doesn't know what to do or doesn't know anybody?"

Filshie learned of McGorry’s need for a new liver through Amy's social media posts.

"I knew that she was sick," Filshie said. "I just didn't know how sick she felt."

Liver regenerates

As a nurse for about 30 years at Memorial Sloan Kettering who currently works on the hepatobiliary GI oncology floor, Filshie said she understood how the liver worked and regenerated.

The liver will start to regenerate right after surgery and return to regular size in eight to 12 weeks, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Experts said donors healed faster than they used to because smaller incisions were needed with robotic and laparoscopic surgery.

"Let me just go through the process and see where it goes," Filshie said of her mindset. "If these people [her patients] can do it, then I should be able to do it."

She decided not to tell McGorry she was being tested in the instance she was not a match.

On the same day McGorry received a call from New York — Presbyterian Weil Cornell Medical Center saying they found a donor match, McGorry received a call from her old friend.

"I get a call from Sue, and she's like, ‘Hi, so how would you like my liver?’ " McGorry said. "It made it so much easier knowing it was her. Sue is very positive, upbeat, very strong."

McGorry, who brought their tennis tournament trophy to their reunion, said even on the morning of the surgery and during any hardship postsurgery, Filshie was a source of reassurance and motivation to keep moving forward, describing her overall recovery as A+.

"She carried me through that tournament," McGorry said to Filshie. "Now you carried me through this."