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After two liver transplants, Seattle’s Maggie Kim is still running half marathons

July 7, 2014
Maggie Kim, left, with Mari Jo Steiner at the 2011 Seattle Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon. (LifeCenter Northwest)

Maggie Kim, left, with Mari Jo Steiner at the 2011 Seattle Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon. (LifeCenter Northwest)

A Seattleite who underwent two liver transplants after being diagnosed with liver cancer and who has completed five half marathons since is now spreading organ donation awareness.

Maggie Kim, 43, is a bookkeeper and musician who has been living in Seattle for 17 years. Her diagnosis came as a surprise in 2008, when she was 28, she told Northwest Asian weekly.

In what she calls “a rare situation,” her first transplant was a failure. Kim had a second transplant — this one successful — less than a week after the first.

Kim, now healthy, keeps herself busy with a membership in a fitness group, half marathons and volunteer activities at an organ donor organization and at the University of Washington Medical Center, where she got her transplant.

“I think of my two donor’s families, and am amazed that at the time of their greatest loss, they could be so gracious to donate the organs of their loved ones to help other people,” Kim says in her piece on Asian Weekly. “And I realize how lucky and blessed I am.”