Another Amazing Organ Story

Health News Girl ‘Fantastic’ After 6 Organs
Removed

(March 10) — Heather McNamara, 7, will
be discharged from a New York hospital
today after a daring, high-risk operation
last month in which doctors removed six
vital organs so they could take out a
baseball-sized tumor that had invaded her
abdomen and threatened her life.

The marathon Feb. 6 operation lasted 23
hours. It was the first of its kind in a child
and the second in the world, said the lead
surgeon, Tomoaki Kato. In effect, the
young cancer patient was both the donor
and recipient of her own organs.

“She’s doing fantastic,” her father, Joseph
McNamara, of Islip Terrace, Long Island,
said Monday as the two played Old Maid
in her room at New York-Presbyterian
Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital,
noting that she spent from 10:30 a.m. to
noon in the hospital’s school for pediatric
patients.

Kato’s team removed and chilled the
child’s stomach, pancreas, spleen, liver
and small and large intestines as they
would for transplantation, so they could
be restored after the tumor was taken out.
“This was a very high-risk procedure,”
Kato said. “It was a big responsibility. I
was very nervous.”

The transplant specialist said the cancer
had spread so widely that the girl’s
stomach, pancreas and spleen couldn’t
be saved. In place of her stomach, Kato’s
team fashioned a pouch from intestinal
tissue to hold food before it moves into
the small intestine for digestion. The loss
of her pancreas turned the child into a
diabetic who will need insulin injections
and digestive enzymes. Without a spleen,
she’ll face a heightened risk of infection.
She can eat ordinary food, supplemented
for now by a pump worn in a school-style
backpack.

Kato said the surgery was so risky that
the girl’s father, 46, was prepped to be a
live organ donor in case surgeons
couldn’t salvage his daughter’s liver.
Kareem Abu-Elmagd, a University of
Pittsburgh transplant surgeon, said: “It
was a gamble. I admire Kato for having
the courage to do this.”

Kato said the gamble took a toll on him,
too.

“Afterwards, I was about to collapse,” he
said. “I slept for five or six hours on a
couch.”

Last year, at the University of Miami, Kato
carried out the first such operation, on a
62-year-old South Florida woman, whom
he said is doing well.

For her part, Heather said she’s feeling
fine and can’t wait to get home. She’s
missing her sister, Stephanie, 10, and a
Pomeranian named Angel.

“I love to play with my dog,” she said.

Dear President O,

First of all, I want to say that I think generally speaking you're doing a really good job. THANK YOU so much for lifting the restrictions on stem cell research. This technology has the potential to change my son's life and your willingness to rile up the pro-life movement (although, they are generally anti-my son's life) is commendable. Thanks to your courage, maybe someday my little guy won't have to pee through a hole in his abdomen. I also think it's wonderful that you've lifted the global gag rule. Not only have you taken a stand in favor of curing my son's illness; you've stood firmly in favor of women's lives and that is not (sadly) an easy choice in these polarized times.

That said...

Speaking of women's lives: I've heard you want to negotiate with the "moderate Taliban leaders." WTF!?!? WHO, pray tell, are the moderate Taliban? The ones who only beat women for wearing shoes that make noise, rather than killing them outright? I like you a lot. But this CANNOT happen. To negotiate with the Taliban would be a betrayal of everything you stand for: for democracy, anti-terrorism, female equality, all of it. The Taliban are not and never have been "moderate." Please, don't lend them credibility by giving them a seat at the table.

I voted for change and to a large degree you've delivered. Don't take away from women in Afghanistan what you're giving back to women here. If you are a Feminist president (which you have said you are) then you need to advocate for the rights of ALL women. That means continuing to stand up against oppression and misogyny wherever it is found...whether it's the board room of National Right to Life or the streets of Kabul.

As Abigail Adams said to her husband John: "Please, remember the ladies."