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Crowd welcomes home 'a fighter'
Man recovering from abdominal transplant
1215stomach2
Don Little arrives Wednesday afternoon at Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport in Gainesville after flying back home from Indiana, where he underwent a complete abdominal transplant. The surgery is only performed at a few hospitals across the country.

Coming soon

In Sunday Life, read more about Don Little’s incredible surgery and his fight against pancreatic cancer.

Don Little may not be a heavyweight boxer but for the last year, he's been in Indiana, fully engaged in the fight of his life.

Wednesday afternoon, he returned home triumphant — as a cancer survivor.

To earn his title, Little had to undergo a complete abdominal transplant. It's a complex surgery that's only performed in a few hospitals across the country.

For the operation - known as a multi-visceral or multi-organ transplant - Little received a new pancreas, liver, stomach and small intestine.

"Don is such a go-getter. A fighter," said his wife, Debbie Little. "He's been in the hospital for nearly nine months, but he never had reservations about this not working. At least if he did, he never told me."

Little returned to Gainesville via a chartered plane to a hero's welcome. Waiting at Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport was a crowd of nearly 100 friends, family members and co-workers.

As they waited for his arrival, adults buzzed about readying "Welcome home" banners and some of the younger welcome wagoners enjoyed the unusually warm winter afternoon, cheering each time a plane landed or departed.

"That's them. That's the plane," some folks in the crowd yelled excitedly when they spied the carrier with their precious cargo aboard.

After a few cheers and a prayer, Little was pushed on a gurney from the inbound airplane to a waiting ambulance.

From the airport, he journeyed to Northeast Georgia Medical Center for observation.

"He will be there for a few days, until they deem it is time for him to be transferred to the inpatient, acute care rehabilitation center," Debbie Little said. "The main thing is he just needs to get stronger."