"They didn't think I'd make it through the night," Blaj said.
Time was running out.
"They told me, you know what, maybe two days is what we have to find you a liver," she said.
For the past 10 years, Blaj has been dealing with problems with her liver. An infection almost took her life.
"It had already shut down my kidneys," Blaj said. "My liver had shut down and basically I had a heart attack. That was the pain in my back. They thought I was toast that very day."
That's when doctors turned to an artificial liver, or ELAD, to keep her alive. It works like a dialysis, cleaning toxins out of plasma.
"The assumption is that it will provide temporary liver support while either their liver gets better or as a bridge to a transplant," said Dr. Robert S. Brown, Jr., professor of medicine and surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia.
Before the plasma is returned, it filters through cells in the ELAD taken from a liver tumor. They help in detoxifying, blood-clotting and metabolism.
"These liver cells can grow on plastic and can be easily stored and transported and they grow very, very dense," Dr. Brown said.
The ELAD system kept Blaj alive for five days -- enough time to find a donor liver.
"It bought me time," Blaj said. "Five days was like an eternity."
Now, she's living a whole new life.
"I have told people it's like living in a fog and having that fog lifted," Blaj said.
A person's chances of dying on the waiting list for a donor liver are higher than the chances of dying on the artificial liver. Dr. Brown has kept patients on the machine for up to 10 days.
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