For 12 years, Seaford residents Eileen Navagh and Paul Thompson have done everything together, from hiking and biking to kayaking and road tripping.

So, when Thompson, 62, learned in April he needed a liver transplant after years of managing cirrhosis, Navagh, his fiancée, volunteered.

"We were told the waiting list is very, very long," Navagh said. "I said, 'Paul, if it's a match, it's meant to be.'"

At 59, Navagh was at the upper-end cutoff for living donors. But after physicals, tests and scans, the call came in July, while the couple was hiking at Blydenburgh County Park in Smithtown: She was a match.

In late August, the couple arrived at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, where transplant surgeon Dr. Nabil Dagher oversaw 10 hours of surgery, involving five surgeons and

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