Will Travis, the former Denton County sheriff who now serves as a Fort Worth city marshal, is racing against a deteriorating liver as he searches for a living donor willing to give him a second chance. The Flower Mound resident has spent years battling primary sclerosing cholangitis, a disease that scars and inflames the bile ducts, and now faces bile duct cancer on top of it. His family says time is short, and they are turning to the community for help finding a match.
According to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, Travis has battled primary sclerosing cholangitis for six years and was diagnosed with bile duct cancer in March. He now receives regular chemotherapy treatments, and his family says a liver transplant from a living donor represents his best shot at recovery. Travis himself put it bluntly, saying his liver is deteriorating rapidly and the time available is limited, per the same report. His daughter Dani told the station that watching her father confront a life-threatening illness has been especially difficult.
Travis built a long career in Texas law enforcement before his current role, having served with the Denton County Sheriff's Office, the Dallas Police Department, and the Drug Enforcement Administration, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth reports. That background has helped galvanize a wide network of support now that his family has gone public with the search for a donor.
A Monthlong Push for a Match
The Travis family has circulated flyers seeking living liver donors for the past month, and the outreach has clearly traveled beyond North Texas. The family has received phone calls from across the United States, and a family member reported that one online post received hundreds of thousands of views within a day or two and was shared by hundreds of people, according to the station's report. Potential donors have since signed up through Living Donor Dallas to learn whether they might be a match, the outlet notes.
Separately, Cross Timbers Gazette reports that Travis was diagnosed with PSC about five or six years ago, and that he is in urgent need of a liver donation. His family told the outlet that he had actually been feeling better recently — after a bout of pancreatitis and several weeks off chemotherapy, he regained about 20 of the 40 pounds he had lost. The family is working with Living Donor Dallas to help identify a compatible living donor, and they say anyone with B+, B-, O+ or O- blood type may be compatible, though the transplant team will ultimately determine any actual match.
How a Living Donation Would Work
Cross Timbers Gazette reports that a living donor would give up about 40% of their liver, and that the organ would regrow within a couple of months. That regrowth timeline lines up with guidance from UT Southwestern Medical Center, which explains that liver segments in both the donor and the recipient grow back to full size within a few weeks of a living-donor transplant.
UT Southwestern's materials add that any patient on the liver transplant waiting list is eligible to be considered for a living-donor procedure, and that the surgery itself typically takes between six and eight hours, with donors usually staying in the hospital for about five days afterward. The medical center also stresses that the decision to donate must be voluntary and free from coercion or financial compensation.
The need extends well beyond one Flower Mound family. UT Southwestern notes that more than 13,000 people across the United States are currently waiting for a liver transplant, a backlog that underscores why living-donor programs like the one the Travis family is relying on have become such a critical option for patients whose conditions won't wait for a deceased-donor match.
