Iowa father with stage 4 colorectal cancer gets liver transplant thanks to surprise donorKyler Hess is a father of four battling stage 4 colorectal cancer. Doctors told him a liver from a living donor will give him a chance at a cure. Then a surprise donor stepped up. POLK CITY, Iowa —Throwing the football in the yard with his kids is not something Kyler Hess takes for granted. It’s the small moments that carry a lot of meaning for the Polk City father battling stage 4 colorectal cancer. “When it came to giving us the odds, my wife immediately said absolutely not. We’re not going to put that in his head,” said Kyler Hess. Kyler’s wife Emilie says the family has strived to maintain a positive outlook since receiving the diagnosis in July of 2025.”We would be a statistic at that point. It was, ‘Let us have our own story, and see what we can do from there,'” said Emilie Hess. A CT scan revealed the cancer had spread to Kyler’s liver with more than 15 tumors. The Hess family says doctors in Des Moines told them there wasn’t much they could do, so the family sought treatment at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “After a couple of months of treatment and nutritional changes and all the other things we did, things started to turn around and things started to shrink,” said Kyler Hess. With the cancer under control, Kyler says the doctors at Mayo Clinic told him he was eligible for a liver transplant but it needed to come from a living donor. The liver is made up of two lobes, and one lobe has the ability to grow and regenerate in another person. Kyler’s brother immediately underwent extensive testing, but was not able to donate because of his liver anatomy. “I felt awful for them, but then it was that moment where I was like it’s meant to be me,” said Abby Conley. Abby Conley didn’t know Kyler, but she followed his journey online because their kids attend the same school in Polk City. Abby decided to quietly travel to Mayo Clinic to go through three days of extensive testing to see if her liver was a match. She says she felt called to do this in honor of her father who passed away in 2021 while awaiting a bone marrow transplant after battling leukemia. “When my dad was in his final days, he wrote his family a letter, and in that letter he said I have lived a fairy tale life … keep it going,” said Abby Conley. Now Conley hopes her donation will allow Kyler many more years with his kids. “In order to continue on for the future years of watching my kids graduate, walk my daughter down the aisle, see all the big moments in life with them, I had to have that piece I can’t do on my own,” said Kyler. If you would like to sign up to be an organ or tissue donor, you can visit the Iowa Donor Network’s website. You can also support the Hess family here. » Subscribe to KCCI’s YouTube page» Download the free KCCI app to get updates on the go: Apple | Google Play
