An introduction never happened, just a question blurted out at Emily Newton as she shopped for cookie ingredients in a Raleigh Harris Teeter before Christmas.

"Are you Emily Newton?" the woman asked.

"Uh ... yeah," Emily responded, nervous and puzzled.

"Can I give you a hug?"

"Um ... sure."

The older woman extended her arms with a smile. Emily, 16, slowly stepped forward to embrace the stranger.

"Your story has been so encouraging to me," said the woman, whose name Emily doesn't recall. "Just watching what you and your family went through and how you guys have dealt with it has been awesome."

The woman knew Emily from CaringBridge, a website that has documented the Broughton High School student's life for the past 10 months - and the liver transplant that gave her another chance at life.

Emily didn't expect to become a CaringBridge celebrity or to have her story inspire strangers. It's a story even she is still trying to understand.

Endurance at issue

Richard and Elaine Newton say their daughter's story is about a miracle.

Last March, though, they were disappointed with her. Growing up in a Christian family, Emily learned to use her talents from God to the best of her abilities. One place she showed that was on the basketball court.

After a successful freshman season at Trinity Academy, she transferred to Broughton in hopes of eventually playing college basketball. Although Broughton coach Dayna Jordan saw talent in Emily, she put her on the JV team last season because the teenager struggled with her endurance.

The Newtons thought their daughter was not giving maximum effort.

"We were yelling at her from the stands saying, 'You have to hustle! You're acting like you have weights on your legs!' " Elaine Newton said.

Emily soon found herself in a new routine: Wake up, sleep through classes in school, sleep before basketball practice, sleep after practice, homework and sleep again.

Teachers noticed that Emily's skin was changing colors - she was actually turning yellow. Still, Emily went to Durham to try out for the Hoops City U basketball team on Feb. 28. But shortly after she started the workouts, though, Richard Newton received a call from his daughter.

"I don't know what's wrong, Dad," she said, "but I can't do this."

On March 3, after experiencing swelling in her abdomen and an inability to talk clearly with her parents, Emily was sent to UNC Hospitals. Doctors diagnosed her with Wilson disease, a rare genetic disorder that causes the body to retain poisonous amounts of copper.

The liver usually releases copper it doesn't need. But with Wilson disease, copper builds up in the liver and can reach the brain, eyes, kidneys and other organs, according to the National Digestive Disease Information Clearinghouse. About one in 40,000 people gets the disease.

Emily acquired it because she inherited two abnormal genes, one from each of her parents.

Richard and Elaine Newton, already feeling guilty for criticizing their daughter, were taken into a hospital conference room on March 4 and given harsh news: Emily needed a liver transplant, and she needed it within 18 to 36 hours to live.

Doctors began scrambling to find a matching liver from a cadaver. Emily was transferred to Duke University Hospital and moved to the top of the national transplant list.

Then, 25 hours later, the family's miracle was announced on CaringBridge: "Praise the Lord!! Emily officially has been matched to a donor liver!!!!"

40,000 well wishers

Doctors, nurses and surgeons weren't sure whether Emily's body would stabilize before her transplant. With so much copper in her system, she was hours away from kidney failure.

Her brain functioning also was starting to diminish, which could have put her in a coma. So, Duke doctors turned to plasmapheresis, a procedure that depletes the liquid part of blood without depleting the body's blood cells.

"It was the first time that we had used plasmapheresis for Wilson disease here," said Julie Hudson, a liver transplant coordinator at Duke for 26 years. "It was amazing at how well it preserved her. I think it did keep her from slipping into a coma."

Just before the transplant surgery, Richard Newton reminded his daughter to recite one of her favorite Bible verses from Colossians 3:1-2: If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

After the eight-hour surgery, primary surgeon Ranjan Sudan came out with the result: The liver was a perfect match. When Emily woke up with her new liver on March 6, the first thing she remembered was the Bible verses.

"The person who gave this liver did not lose their life so they could give an organ to my daughter," Richard Newton said. "But in losing their life, they gave life to my daughter. That's a really incredible gift."

Emily logged into CaringBridge for the first time on March 12. "It's so overwhelming to just know how many people were there for me," she said of the 43,374 visitors to the CaringBridge page. "That was the first time I cried."

Back on the court

Every day, Emily wakes up to a Nerf basketball hoop on her bedroom door. It has a Bible verse taped to the backboard from Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.

Jane Currin, Emily's basketball mentor for the past five years, brought the hoop to Emily the day before her surgery. When doctors said it was unlikely that she would be well enough to play basketball this season, Emily used the hoop as motivation.

"Somebody telling her she wouldn't play was all the determination she needed to hear," said Currin, an Appalachian State University Athletic Hall of Famer after having 660 assists from 1984 to 1988.

Emily decided to start walking around her neighborhood in April. Then she ran. Soon, she was walking and running up stairs - all weeks ahead of what doctors anticipated. By July 31, she was playing basketball with Currin.

"She is the only patient I've had who has gotten back to such a remarkable level of functioning to compete within a sport so quickly," Hudson, the transplant coordinator, said.

Still, Jordan, the Broughton coach, was hesitant.

"I was not even thinking she was going to potentially be a varsity player," Jordan said.

But during Broughton's tryouts in November, Jordan was impressed with Emily's footwork, her hands and her desire to play again. Emily had also become a vocal leader.

Now on the varsity team, Emily is trying to build up the very thing Jordan wanted from her last season: stamina. Before Tuesday's game against Enloe, she kept her teammates loose with jokes. Inside the locker room, Jordan pointed to her, signaling that she was going to be starting at center.

On Broughton's first possession, Emily drew a foul and received two free throws.

Swish. Swish.

Although those would be her only points in the game, she also grabbed three rebounds, made two assists and was able to play solid defense - all while Richard and Elaine cheered from the stands. Against an Enloe team that plays four guards to apply full-court pressure, Jordan decided to play Emily for just 11 minutes.

"Any playing time I can get is awesome," Emily said after Broughton fell to Enloe, 71-52. "No one really expected me to actually be on the team, so the fact that I'm starting and getting a few minutes is exciting."

Throughout this season, she will continue to adjust to her role on the team and to her new life - one that has already affected more lives than she thought was possible. She will continue to encourage people to become organ donors.

Emily understands that people will want to hear her story more than anything else - whether it's for hope, inspiration or spiritual reasons.

And when she speaks, she will bring up that Bible verse on the Nerf backboard in her bedroom.

Because if she has anything to say about her life, she'll start with that.

nate.taylor@newsobserver.com or 919 829-4538