Never Ending Hope Finds John Zdyrko a Liver

By Katie McFadden

After nearly five years of hoping for a much-needed liver transplant, John Zdyrko had his prayers answered. He had a successful liver transplant on Saturday, March 14.

On Easter Sunday, April 5, after the crowded Masses had cleared out, three weeks after his successful transplant, John and Debbie Zdyrko, stopped by to see and thank Father Jim Cunningham, who helped spread the word and led prayers along the way, as John awaited a donor. “I’m just so happy for him because they never lost hope,” Father Jim told The Rockaway Times.

It was a story of holding on to hope for a donor for nearly five years amid an even longer frightening ordeal. Some may know Zdyrko, a local resident, for his work with DSNY. He had worked as a sanitation worker for Rockaway Q14 for many years, playing an instrumental part in cleaning up the neighborhood after Hurricane Sandy. However, a year and a half after that, Zdyrko faced a streak of bad luck, starting with a major car accident in 2014. On his day off, he volunteered his time to clean up Cross Bay Blvd., ahead of the funeral for fallen NYPD officer Dennis Guerra, which was taking place in Rockaway. As his devoted wife, Debra Starkman-Zdyrko, retired from the NYPD’s Transit District 23, said, “He was on Cross Bay by the bird sanctuary and John got rear ended by a car that came out of nowhere. His car rolled. He broke the whole left side of his body,” she said. It forced Zdyrko into retirement two years early. “He recovered, but he was never the same after that.”

That accident spiraled into a never-ending health journey. In 2017, a mysterious internal bleed landed John in the hospital, requiring emergency surgery to determine what was wrong. The hospital stay resulted in 13 coils being placed around his intestine. In 2019, John was hit with another blow when he was diagnosed with throat cancer. Fortunately, it was able to be removed.

Among those issues, Zdyrko’s liver was facing its own battle, as he had hepatitis C many years ago, which he was cured of, but left him with cirrhosis. In April 2023, doctors found a nodule in his liver. Although not a concern at the time, two months later at an MRI appointment, doctors determined it was cancerous. He underwent an ablation to burn off the cancerous nodule, but in July 2023, he was ultimately given the news that he needed a liver transplant. And so began a determined search by his wife, Debbie.

But that search for a living donor was put on pause as Zdyrko faced even more obstacles. After the liver diagnosis, he developed bladder cancer, which required treatment for two years. After he was given the clear, testing once again began to get him ready for a liver transplant, when it was found that he needed two stents for his heart. Fortunately, that procedure didn’t deter the search for a liver transplant, which moved full speed ahead last fall.

From calls for donors at Mass to social media posts, stories and ads in local newspapers, flyers around the community and more, the quest to find John a living donor was as endless as his health battles.

As an organ donation recipient himself, thanks to Pat Nash and Mike Coughlin, and as someone who prayed through Meghan Long and Eric Ulrich’s decisions to become living donors for others, the Zdyrkos sought the guidance of Father Jim and St. Francis de Sales Church for help, a decision that made a believer out of Debbie herself, as she converted to Catholicism a few years ago. “Father Jim was a big support for John, and me, too. He was always there to talk about it, and his last kidney came from my old boss, my old lieutenant, Mike Coughlin,” Starkman-Zdyrko said. “John and Debbie are such good, positive, prayerful people who are always caring for others. I just wanted to keep encouraging them,” Father Jim said. “I believed in my heart that it was going to happen.”

The call for a donor resulted in 13 people coming forward who appeared to be matches. “A lot of them seemed promising, but it always came down to basically the same thing. They do a real fine-toothed examination of donors and there was always a little something that wasn’t right, so they couldn’t donate,” Starkman-Zdyrko explained. One of the last hopes they had was the boyfriend of Debbie’s niece, who had flown up from South Carolina for some final testing, after undergoing testing at home. “It all looked promising and then at the very last minute, they found some issue with a hepatic vein being in the wrong spot, so he wasn’t able to donate. It was so discouraging. We went from 13 to zero,” Starkman-Zdyrko said.

As anxiety grew, Father Jim encouraged Debbie to take a page out of Blessed Solanus Casey’s book who encourages everyone to “thank God ahead of time” in their prayers. “She was becoming really anxious, and I told her, Debbie, you’ve never doubted. Don’t doubt now because something is going to happen. I said thank God in advance for saving John and making this happen, because we know it’s going to take place,” Father Jim said.

“We went to St. Francis and lit candles, said some prayers, and the very next morning, the phone rang and the person from the transplant team at NYU said they had a deceased donor and asked if we were interested. We were told to say yes, no matter what, since it’s so hard to come by livers and they have to do testing on it anyway,” Starkman-Zdyrko said. “The next day, John had his surgery and now he’s walking around with a new liver and a belly full of staples, but on the right track.”

On March 14, John had his long-awaited eight-hour transplant surgery, led by Dr. Campos and Dr. Halazun at NYU Langone, thanks to an unknown generous man from New Jersey who had died and donated his organs. “I guess those 13 weren’t meant to be donors and this worked out the way it was supposed to,” Starkman-Zdyrko said. “This is not an experience I would want anyone to go through, but this community, the church and Father Jim, and strangers, people I swear I never saw in my life, were so supportive and always coming up to us, telling us how much they were praying and how happy they are for us now, and it made a big difference. We’re so thankful to everyone for everything.”

Although in a lot of pain as he recovers, Zdyrko was able to return home to Rockaway on Friday and pay Father Jim a visit on Sunday. “I’m doing pretty good,” Zdyrko said. “Every day is a little better.”

And Father Jim was glad for the visit. “It was so great to see John. He’s got a new life and so many selfless people came forward and signed up to get tested, and it’s such a beautiful thing. If anyone deserves a second chance at life, it’s John because he is a really good man and Debbie is a really amazing person. They always want to do good for other people and I’m sure they’ll pay it forward and help others find donors.”