MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) - Lucy McGovern is from Seattle, but is now a Marquette University student in her junior year.

This year, she decided to spend the semester studying abroad in Rome.

Lucy quickly got sick on a trip to Budapest with friends and ended up going to the hospital as she continued to get worse.

“Her doctor in Rome, the school related doctor, said to Lucy you need to get back to Rome immediately,” Lucy’s dad Vince McGovern said.

Lucy went back to Rome, where she learned something was wrong with her liver, her dad says the doctor called and let them know the issue was something along the lines of liver failure, hepatitis, or Wilson’s Disease.

Vance and his wife Jenny got to Rome as quick as they could, shortly after Lucy returned.

“She right away took one of our hands and started putting letters on our hands so that she could ask her questions and communicate with us,” Lucy’s mom Jenny McGovern said.

The family learned that a liver transplant was needed but was not sure how long they would have to wait.

Lucy initially went to the hospital the weekend of Jan. 30, one week later a transplant was available.

Papers were signed on a Saturday night, and the surgery was on Sunday morning, the liver coming from someone in Sardinia, Italy.

“I feel forever connected to the family who gave us this gift, we don’t know who they were, but somebody lost a loved one and it saved Lucy’s life,” Jenny McGovern said.

Lucy is out of the ICU but will be in the hospital for a couple of weeks and hopes to be back home by this spring.

“Each step feels scary to us but everything that we’d been told is that she is on the right path and her numbers look good and there’s blood flowing through her liver,” Jenny McGovern said.

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