Young girl receives 6-organ transplant in Boston

BOSTON -- On the top floor of Boston’s Children's Hospital, a spirited nine-year-old girl from Maine is packing up her things to come home.

When Alannah was five, she was diagnosed with a rare and massive tumor that doesn't respond to chemotherapy. The tumor wrapped itself around Alannah's esophagus, stomach, liver, pancreas, spleen, and small intestines, and it was only a matter of time before the tumor would cut off the blood supply to those organs.

She needed a six-organ transplant.

"This is a very difficult operation,” Dr. Heung Be Kim said. “It's about as difficult as you can get. And the hard part of it is the actual removal of the tumor and the organs."

After being on the transplant waiting list for 15 months, one family's loss became Alannah's miracle. Three months ago, doctors took Alannah in for her transplant surgery.

"I was calm,” Deb Skolas, Alannah’s grandmother, said. “I knew he was going to be able to do it. I just knew Dr. Kim could do it."

During the 14 and a half hour surgery, doctors removed the cancerous tumor and six organs that the tumor had wrapped itself around. Doctors then transplanted in six new organs and gave Alannah her life back.

Dr. Kim kept all six organs attached during the transplant.

"So it's really like transplanting one large organ,” he said.

The operation was a success and they got the entire tumor.

"You know the people who donated the organs are so brave," Alannah’s grandfather, Jamie Skolas, said.

This is believed to be the very first transplant of an esophagus.

Alannah must take medicine to keep her body from rejecting the news organs, but she can now live a normal life.

"She's fought hard, you know. And they gave her something back. They

gave her back her life," Deb said. "She's happy. She's happy. We're going home. We're going back to Maine."

Alannah's grandmother stayed by the little girl’s bedside every one of her nights in the hospital.

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