Doll to a sick child....
 

This is a story type thing about Adrianna Martinez who got doll number 80, of the dolls i make and give away to very very very sick children. Right now, Adrianna has just had her 3rd birthday and is a happy child. She takes at least 13 pills every day and will for a long time if not forever to prevent the 3 organs from rejecting from her body. She loves the doll, especially that it is the size she is and flip flops to become a sleepy doll with a sleepy smiling face. Her mother has given me permission to post her story and her picture. If I can get the pictures to come up, you will see her as the recovering baby in her walker/roller, theanother one taken 2 years after her surgery. The article says 1 year, but I think that is post recovery as the mother says 3 months at the time of surgery. Good article and heart warming story I hope you will like. The surgery was in 2009 at the Tucson Arizona University hospital.

Vickey S.


Baby Receives a Three-Organ Transplant at University Medical Center
TUCSON, Ariz. – A 1-year-old girl from the Phoenix area successfully received a three-organ multi-visceral transplant as part of a single surgical procedure on Nov. 9 at University Medical Center – the first procedure of its kind performed in Arizona and the Southwestern United States. The liver, small bowel, and pancreas from a deceased baby donor were transplanted “en bloc” (kept together as a single unit) in the seven-hour operation, a complex procedure that is rarely performed and requires superb logistical, surgical and medical coordination.
The patient, Adrianna Martinez, was born without a small bowel, a rare congenital malformation that makes it impossible to digest food. With total parenteral nutrition (TPN), babies can survive by receiving most or all of their nutrition directly into the blood stream, but for reasons that are not completely clear, TPN also can lead to liver failure. She also was born with situs inversus – her abdominal organs were positioned on the wrong side – making her condition even more complex.
A family friend had agreed to donate part of his bowel and liver, but the day before the scheduled surgery surgeons were notified that whole organs from a deceased baby donor had become available.
“By transplanting all three organs at once, we can give children with these serious intestinal diseases hope for a healthy future,” said Rainer Gruessner, MD, professor and chairman of the UA Department of Surgery and chief of transplantation at UMC. Dr. Gruessner was recruited to the UA and UMC in 2007 from the University of Minnesota. He is an international leader in abdominal transplantation who standardized the technique for living donor intestine transplants.
The transplant team included surgeons Dr. Gruessner, John Renz, MD, PhD, professor of surgery and vice-chief of abdominal transplantation, and Tun Jie, MD, assistant professor of surgery. The medical team included Khalid Khan, MBChB, MRCP, professor of surgery and a gastroenterologist specializing in pediatric liver and intestine transplants, and Thomas Boyer, MD, professor of medicine and director of the Arizona Liver Institute at the UA College of Medicine.
Dr. Renz procured the organs from an out-of-state hospital and oversaw the timing of the donor and recipient operations critical to the procedures’ overall success.
UMC is the only comprehensive pediatric transplant program in the Southwest, said Nance Conney, director of the UMC Transplant Program. The program includes dedicated specialists in pediatric surgery and transplantation; pediatric gastrointestinal medicine and nutrition; advanced-practice nursing; and child life and social support services. This range of services, essential to helping these children and their families cope with these overwhelming health problems, only is available at a few leading transplant hospitals in the nation.
In addition to a long history of heart, lung, kidney, pancreas and liver transplants, the UMC Transplant Program performed its first living-donor and first deceased intestine transplants for small bowel syndrome and first auto-islet cell transplants for chronic pancreatitis earlier this year.
Dr. Gruessner said the first year will be critical to Adrianna's survival, but so far she is doing well. The survival rate for this type of procedure is about 65-70 percent during the first year. “When these children survive the surgery and the first two months post op and do well, they can do very well long-term,” he said.

I am sorry that I cannot figure out how to post sweet Adrianna's pictures. If you wish to see them, please send me a pm and I will send you her picture.

Thanks.

Vickey S.

Vickey
reply to this thread
under the reply box click on "Go advanced"
In that window find "Manage attachments" and click on that blue box
Click on browse.
When you get to a list of pictures click only once until the picture you want turns blue. (It will look like: image028 unless you have renamed it.)
then BEFORE you try to add it to this post RIGHT click on it and choose "edit". In the new window that pops up find "resize" which will be on the far left. Click the bullet that says "pixels" and change the top number to 750. The bottom number will automatically change to what it should be. Find the save icon on the top far left and close that box.
NOW double click on that same picture in your list and it will be in your box next to "browse". Find the word "Upload" and let it do it's thing. When it says upload complete - or shows you the image number in blue font then you have added a pic to this thread. It's really not as complicated as it sounds. WHen you've done it a time or two it will be easy.
Good luck. I've seen pictures of many of your dolls and would love to see this one.

Adrianna Martinez recovering from triple transplant in 2010
 

hope this first pic downloads

Adrianna 2 years after the transplant
 

here is the doll Adrianna got just last Tuesday and a few months after her 3rd birthday

Addriann and/or doll with nightgown view
 

sorry, Adrianna's picture didn't come up. I'll try again. You may only get the nightgown part of the doll.

Vickey

Thank you for sharing Adrianna's story. I am happy to learn she is doing so well. This is the power of prayer. You are a beautiful person to make dolls for the sick kids.

The current picture of Adrianna is precious and your dolls are just too cute.

Andrianna's doll (nightgown view)
 

In the other picture, Adrianna is 3 years old. She must take pills (several each day) because of the transplant. What a brave sweet girl.

Hope you enjoy seeing who got the 80th doll.

God Bless you and yours

Vickey S.

Thanks so much for the reply Betty62. God Bless!

Thanks so much for your help so I was finally (although I didn't do the greatest job of it) get to show you the two of Adrianna plus the two versions of the doll she is learning to love. God bless and thanks again.

Oh hurray! So good to see her smiling face. You are doing great work and do it with true passion. Sew on!

Miracles!! God CAN deliver and give special talents to the doctors who treated her!!

Thank you for posting the story and pictures. Wonderful doll, beautiful child. Great positive story to start the day with.

A very heart warming story. I am so glad you shared with us. She is a beautiful child. Us adults have to take notice from these little ones who suffer some horrible sickness.. and look at their little faces.. how smiley and bright. Our son was the same way.. I remember back in 1986 when my son was born with short gut syndrome, we had asked all the specialists about a bowel transplant. Our surgeon said we had a better chance of enjoying some life with our son NOT having the surgery. As at that time, there had been no survivors of that type of surgery at the time. The doc my son had at the time, traveled all over the US teaching bowel sugery and etc to others, and was on a team trying to get the transplant to work. We had questioned the surgery when we were told our son would never live to be 8.. one of the reasons was the TPN.. really does wreck a body inside.. I am very happy to say he is now married..and doing very well. So I will personally be praying for this little angel to have the very best outcome she can. My husbands brother is a kidney transplant survivor. So we know about all the meds...

All I have to say is you are very special to do this for the children .. Definitely an ANGEL !!

O she is a cutie and
has a beautiful doll.
Thank you for caring and sharing.
J J

What a precious sweet face.

Have you considered buying white sheets to obtain the fabric needed for the petticoats? That might be more economical than buying white fabric by the yard.

Your dolls are lovely.

Awww that is so awsome.

two dolls found a home with a sick child toda
 

I hope I get these posted as the right dolls for the right child. This morning at 11:30 a.m. I took a doll (topsy turvy...two in one doll) to a local single mother for her child. The child is only 6 months old, and much younger than I normally give a doll to....BUT...she ha had two surgeries already as she was born with her heart on the wrong side. Her next surgery will be (barring emergencies) when she becomes at least 5 years of age. The doll's dress has little blocks that say America and Land Of The Free on it along with other designs. It is red, white and blue. The underside or nightgown part has blue trim and tied in red, white and blue ribbons as is the waistband on the front. It stands 22 inches high. The babies name is Ziouna (pronounced GUY O NA) The picture (s) is below

here is the nightgown part of her doll

Today has been a first for personal delivery of two non-cancer dolls by me. After this mornings delivery, I went to the local MAIL ROOM with a second doll came about because of a prayer request for a 6 year old girl named Austin. Austin has seizures and had a stroke also 15 months ago. Turns out it is because of brain swellings. Because her brain got swollen to twice its normal size, she was taken to surgery yesterday. The surgeons think they got all of what is causing the seizures, etc. If that turns out to be wrong, it will mean radiation and more surgery (s). I am sending a picture of her doll. The lips are hard to see becausee they are a pink color. I hope you enjoy the pictures.
The doll will arrive UPS in 4 to 5 days.

the nightgown with 'patchwork' belongs with the child with the brain surgery status....it is duplicated above by mistake. I am now posting the doll that went to the little one who was born with her heart on the wrong side of her body below

wonderful story and doll too. i know those doll clothes are difficult to make sometimes. the arms are so small. lovely work.

thanks for the reply. My brother lives in Texas. We are losing him to cancer. I don't think it will take much longer. He is from Brunsfel, TX near San Antonio (30 minutes away)

Glad you liked the doll. 98% of my dolls go out to the American cancer society. God Bless you and yours.

Vickey S.