“She has so much more energy and is eating so much more. She is also moving and walking more than she ever did.”
Four-year-old Stella Allison has always loved telling jokes and playing dress up.
With energy that is contagious and a smile that lights up a room, her mom Kyley Barthlow says Stella has grown into a high-spirited and chatty child – but was born a real fighter.
Read the full story from Seattle Children’s.
Maria Contreras and Monica Davis share many things — including a vital organ.
The two Ohio women, who refer to themselves as “split-liver sisters,” received a liver transplant on July 1, 2020. But it wasn’t an ordinary transplant surgery: They had a split-liver transplantation, in which a donor’s liver was divided into two distinct portions, which were then implanted into each patient. Read the full story in The Washington Post.
You just found out you need an organ transplant. Whether it’s a heart, kidney, liver or lung, there are some key fundamentals to keep in mind as you navigate your transplant journey. Who better to share advice than those who have been through it?
Below are words of advice transplant recipients shared on Facebook and Instagram from their experiences during their transplant journeys. Read the full story on CareDx.com here.
After Coping With Congenital Heart Disease Since Birth, Andrew Solis, 21, Spent Nearly 8 Months at Cedars-Sinai Waiting for His New Heart and Liver
Newswise — LOS ANGELES — (June 13, 2022) — While many 21-year-olds celebrate their coming of age in bars and nightclubs, Andrew Solis is celebrating freedom by finally going home—equipped with a new heart and liver—after nearly eight months at Cedars-Sinai.
“Before my heart and liver transplant, I was stuck in the hospital, feeling weak, anxious and stressed,” said Solis, a Long Beach resident who was born with a heart condition. “Now, with my new organs, I feel great—like a new person. I feel really grateful and blessed for the wonderful team that has been behind me.” Read the full story in News Wise here.
Almost 30 hours after my bilateral lung transplant, it was time for me to be extubated and take my first solo breath with my new lungs. My wife, Susan, was at my bedside, along with several nurses.
In a video of that day last July, you can hear Susan ask me if I’m ready to have the tube removed. I shook my head no.
But once the nurses removed the tube, an almost immediate calm came over me. I could breathe. Read more in Pulmonary Fibrosis News.
(CNN) Samira Jafari is at home now resting from a surgery that saved a life — not her own, but her colleague’s.
The deputy managing editor of CNN’s investigations unit answered the request for employees to be tested to find a donor for Senior UN Correspondent Richard Roth, who needed a kidney transplant, and found that her blood and tissue was a match.
Read the full story from CNN Health.
Grace Rosenback had been enjoying her work as a presentation designer at an advertising company when her health issues took center stage. She was diagnosed with myocarditis in October 2019 and faced heart transplant surgery. She felt a lot of uncertainty about her future and what to expect.
Her journey through health and work issues included accessing her long-term disability (LTD) insurance, applying for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, and eventually returning to work through the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Ticket to Work program. Read the complete article in Forbes.
The heartwarming moment mother Maria Clark got to listen to her son’s heart two years after a fatal car crash was captured on video by the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency.
Maria Clark lost her son, Nicholas Peters, in a fatal car accident nearly two years ago. He was 25. At the time, Clark knew immediately that she wanted to donate his organs. The Madisonville, Louisiana, resident said she also knew her son would have wanted the same. Unbeknown to her, the grateful donee who received her son’s heart lived less than three hours away from her. Jean Paul Marceaux, aged 14, received her son’s heart after spending a whole summer in the hospital fighting for his life. For the first time since the transplant took place, Clark had the opportunity to meet the young boy and listen to her son’s heart, Good Morning America reports. Read the full story from Upworthy.
On May 6, 2014, all Kevin Schnurr had to do was remember his name and date of birth.
So—on May 6, 2014—Kevin awoke from surgery, and doctors and nurses asked him his name and date of birth.
Kevin successfully replied, “My name is Kevin Schnurr … and I was born on March 31, 1986.”
Read the full story on CareDx.com.
They often shared a church pew on Sundays in their Spartanburg, South Carolina, church, but now Karen Randall and Kathy Hodge share much more and have for 20 years. Called the “Liver Sisters” by Hodge’s husband, the two have an incredible bond that has been celebrated throughout the years and every April during National Donate Life Month.
Healthy all her life, Randall was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, primary biliary cholangitis, during a routine check-up in 1995 when she was 41-years-old. The disorder inflames the bile ducts between the liver and the small intestines, which eventually collapse and cause liver damage. The progressive disease would mean that Randall would need a liver transplant within five years. Read the full article from Emory News Center.