STANFORD, Calif. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Every so often, doctors run into a condition so rare that it has them puzzled. With its non-specific symptoms, PVOD is one of them. Seven-year-old Sadie Jackson counts herself lucky to be doing well after receiving a delayed diagnosis for this deadly disease.
“Hallelujah” is Sadie Jackson’s favorite song to play. Its message of hope has a special meaning to her. Not that long ago, the seven-year-old was fighting just to breathe.
“You would be shocked to hear that she is a recipient of a double lung transplant,” said mom Carrie.
“I couldn’t do that much stuff before my transplant. So, after my transplant, I was like, I’m free,” Sadie told Ivanhoe.
In 2022, she began experiencing episodes of uncontrollable coughing and difficulty breathing.
“She would just be gasping for breath. She would turn pale and get sweaty, and we just… we didn’t know what was going on,” recalled Carrie.
“She developed significant fluid in her lungs with the typical treatment for pulmonary hypertension. And so that’s in fact what clued her primary team to thinking that she had pulmonary veno-occlusive disease, which is a type of pulmonary arterial hypertension that actually impacts both the veins as well as the arteries,” explained Cissy Si, MD, medical director of pediatric lung & heart-lung transplant at Stanford Children’s Health.
Sadie was immediately put on the donor list for a double-lung transplant. Thankfully, after an eight-month wait for a donor and a 10-hour surgery, she had her second chance.
“I was so happy cause I could finally just run and play,” Sadie exclaimed.
“She is able to be a little seven-year-old,” said Carrie.
Like all transplant patients, Sadie will need to be continually monitored by doctors. But she won’t have to worry about PVOD recurring since the disease was isolated to her old lungs.
Contributors to this news report include: Jennifer Winter, Producer; Rusty Reed, Videographer; & Roque Correa, Editor.
Source:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2017.10.015
* For More Information, Contact: Stanford Medicine Children’s Health Media
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