[ back ]
04.25.03
Transplant saves a tiny life
 |
|
|
t
took nine months and a trip of nearly 3,000 miles, but in the end it was
all worth it for tiny Adara Henriquez and her parents, Rodolfo and Martha.
Adara was born last year in Panama City, Panama, with biliary
atresia, a condition where an absence of bile ducts destroys the liver
by preventing the body from ridding itself of toxins.
An operation in Panama to save Adara’s liver was unsuccessful, and
the family quickly realized that the liver transplant needed to save her
life was not available in their home country. So they began fundraising
efforts to raise the $250,000 needed to bring Adara to Boston. When they
got here, though, they found that she was too small and sick to have the
transplant she needed, so Children’s nurses and physicians worked
for three months to improve Adara’s condition. On March 11 she and
her mother (who donated a piece of her liver to Adara) went into separate
Children’s operating rooms for a difficult, two-part operation.
Heung
Bae Kim, MD, assistant in Surgery, was part of team
of surgeons from Children’s and the Lahey
Clinic that performed the operations. He says the challenges didn’t
end when Adara was well enough to undergo surgery. “She weighed
only 10 pounds when we operated, making her one of the smallest babies
we’ve ever transplanted,” says Kim. “And she had very
small blood vessels compared to her mother. That’s what we were
worried about the most. We told Adara’s parents that there was a
30 percent chance she wouldn’t live through the surgery.”
Adara did live, however, and the nine-hour procedure left both her and
her mother in good health. The family will return to Panama when she is
healthy enough to travel. She will have to take anti-rejection medication
for the rest of her life, but for now, according to her proud father,
Adara is smiling and moving around her crib, things she was unable to
do before surgery. “It’s a gift from God,” says Rodolfo.
“Now I can look to a future with her, and it makes me happy as a
father to know that my child is going to live and be able to play with
me.”—MC