OMAHA, Neb., July 26 /PRNewswire/ -- When Alan Langnas, D.O., greeted his patient outside the operating room on July 7, it was a reunion of old friends. Ten year-old AJ Nye of Toledo, Ohio has known Dr. Langnas almost since birth. The Nebraska Medical Center’s chief of transplant performed AJ’s first intestinal transplant in 1997.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050726/LATU013-ahttp://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050726/LATU013-bhttp://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050726/LATU013-c Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040811/LAW061LOGO )
Now the two were eye-to-eye again in this -- a defining moment for AJ. Dr. Langnas was going to remove the ostomy bag that was collecting the waste from his body; free AJ’s colon from scar tissue and reconnect his intestinal system -- a complicated surgery that would make AJ tube-free for the first time in his life.
AJ was born with gastroschisis, a condition where the intestines are outside the abdomen. At the age of two, AJ received a new small intestine at The Nebraska Medical Center. He did well for about a year, but then scarring of his donated intestine forced doctors to remove it leaving AJ with an ostomy and IV nutrition. For the next few years, AJ’s body healed from the surgeries and recovered from the immunosuppressant drugs needed to prevent organ rejection. The IV nutrition, however, took a toll on AJ’s liver.
By 2004, AJ needed another transplant -- this time of his intestine and liver. AJ grew sicker and sicker as he waited for donated organs in an apartment near The Nebraska Medical Center. Finally, his mother got the call that organs were found for AJ. That was January 15, 2005. Seven months later, AJ can eat a hot dog! He knows what French fries taste like and soon he won’t be bound by any tubes, appliances, backpacks or pumps. “He keeps mentioning swimming and riding a bike, and running fast,” said his mother Allison.
AJ, along with several other young transplant recipients, will celebrate life at The Nebraska Medical Center’s annual transplant reunion on Saturday, July 30. This year’s reunion marks 35 years of milestones in transplant at the Medical Center -- milestones with names and faces of patients who bravely received an organ and those who heroically donated them.
Emelie’s Journey from Arizona
At The Nebraska Medical Center, one of the busiest pediatric transplant centers in the world, some 45 children are transplanted each year. Children like 21-month-old Emelie Al Hussainy of Phoenix, AZ. A “preemie” at 35 weeks, Emelie was born sick, recalled her mother, Rosa. “I went into premature labor and when Emelie was born, the doctors discovered she had a mass in her stomach.” Emelie’s intestines had ruptured right after birth. Doctors removed the “dead” part of the intestine, and reconnected the remaining organ (intestines can continue to grow and mature after an operation like this).
Though Emelie came home when she was four months old, she could tolerate only breast milk and formula, and later, IV nutrition. She began to get recurring infections almost immediately. In 2004 the family was told Emelie needed a liver transplant-she had begun vomiting and it appeared her liver was failing. She was only one when she arrived at The Nebraska Medical Center, terribly thin, with no energy and was unable to sit up or talk. “She wasn’t able to eat anything and we wanted to make sure she could grow normally,” her mother said.
Nutrition in a growing child is imperative to their development. “Small children must have enough food to not only heal their bodies and help them grow, but to support the development of the brain,” said Laurie Williams-Salonen, R.N., manager of the liver-intestinal transplant team.
“Though the liver can regenerate, in an organ that is not fully developed, when disease takes hold, it branches out like a tree. Eventually, scars develop and prevent the liver from healing itself. And then things just get worse,” Williams-Salonen explained. That’s what happened to Emelie.
On April 1, Emelie received a liver transplant. The transformation has been remarkable. Today, she is energetic, starting to talk and walk and after more than eight months in Omaha she is finally going home with her mother and new baby brother (Rosa gave birth while during Emelie’s stay at The Nebraska Medical Center).
A Little Survivor from Texas
Victoria or “Tory” to her family and friends, will also be at the transplant reunion this year celebrating a little life that was in danger from the moment she was born 3-months premature. Doctors told her grandparents that the child’s small intestine didn’t get enough oxygen while it was developing, and as a result part of it had died. Weighing just one and a half pounds, the baby’s dead intestine was removed, and there was not enough left to properly reconnect the organ. Tory had to be fed intravenously and was subject to frequent blood loss. Her name went on the transplant list just one week shy of her first birthday.
Tory arrived at The Nebraska Medical Center from Texas and found herself in the capable hands and home of the Westman family-Cathy and Ron have been fostering transplant children for 10 years. Tory became one of the family.
“Tory’s health was so precarious she needed two transfusions a week to survive,” said Cathy. By the time she was 15 months old, just before her transplant, she was up to three transfusions a week, and weighed just 15 pounds. Tory received her “gift of life” -- a liver-small bowel transplant
-- in the spring of 2004. “She came out of the surgery looking better than she did when she went in,” said foster mom Westman. Two and half months later, Tory was home.
Recovery has had its ups and downs for Tory, but today, just four months shy of her third birthday, she is the size of an average three year-old. She’s happy and curious, smiling and crawling everywhere and is starting to babble normally. The best thing is she has taken to eating, said Cathy.
For a little girl who has been tube fed since birth, that is quite remarkable, notes Williams-Salonen. “Kids need oral stimulation early. It’s not natural to take something through your mouth if you’re not used to it,” she said. But now Tory has discovered the joys of food and is on her way to growing up.
“Most people don’t think of little children needing transplant,” said Cathy. “But these children don’t have lives until they receive an organ. Once they’ve had a transplant, their lives literally take off. It’s wonderful.”
Of the 89,000 people on the waiting list for organ transplant, approximately 2,300 of them are children under age 17. A new intestine, a kidney or a liver can catapult these children into the real world, where they can go to school, play with friends, enjoy food-in short, lead normal lives -- and develop into productive adults.
Formally established in 1985, The Nebraska Medical Center’s Organ Transplant Program is one of the country’s largest and most well-known, providing comprehensive treatment for diseases of the kidney, liver, pancreas, small intestine, heart and lungs. To date, the Center has performed more than 4,600 transplants. The Center’s efforts in education, research and clinical medicine have helped shape the growth of the relatively young field of transplantation. The Nebraska Medical Center is also home to the Lied Transplant Center, a unique cooperative care residential facility that focuses on patient and family support systems for those waiting and recovering from transplant surgery. For further information, please phone 1-800-922-0000 or visit www.NebraskaTransplant.org.
Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050726/LATU013-ahttp://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050726/LATU013-bhttp://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050726/LATU013-chttp://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040811/LAW061LOGOAP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.orgPRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.comThe Nebraska Medical Center
CONTACT: Kelly Grinnell, Media Relations of The Nebraska Medical Center,+1-402-552-2192, Kgrinnell@NebraskaMed.com
Web site: http://www.nebraskahealthsystem.com/