Young Liver Transplant Patient Recovering

[Guest guest]

Young Liver Transplant Patient Recovering

10-Month-Old Undergoes Major Operation

POSTED: 3:11 p.m. EDT April 7, 2003

UPDATED: 6:33 p.m. EDT April 7, 2003

BOSTON -- A family from Panama is giving thanks Monday, just weeks

after a very big operation for a very little girl.

NewsCenter 5's Unruh reported that Adara Henriquez is

recovering beautifully one month after liver transplant surgery. She

is one of the tiniest patients in Children's Hospital history. The 10-

month-old suffered from biliary atresia -- a disease that destroyed

her liver.

Her parents brought her to Massachusetts from Panama praying surgeons

could save her life.

" I came with all my hopes up and the security that everything was

going to be fine, " Adara's mother, Marta, said.

Marta Henriquez risked her own life by donating part of her liver in

a complicated procedure for both. Adara had a 30 percent chance of

dying.

" She had very small blood vessels compared to her mother. That was

what we worried about the most, " Children's Hospital's Dr. Heung Bae

Kim said.

During the extremely delicate nine-hour operation, a team of surgeons

from Children's Hospital and the Lahey Clinic removed Adara's

diseased liver and replaced it with a tiny portion of her mother's.

" Despite taking about 25 percent of Mrs. Henriquez's liver, that will

regenerate really very quickly, and probably by about three months

about all of that will have come back, " Lahey Clinic's Dr.

Pomfret said.

Both are extremely well, in fact, Adara is thriving. She'll always

need anti-rejection medications and her stomach is a bit scarred, but

she will lead a normal life.

With a healthy liver, daddy's little princess is changing daily.

" She laughs a lot at home. She smiles a lot, and before this moment

she didn't, " Adara's father, Rodolfo, said.

The Henriquezes said that for the first time they're looking forward

to the future -- Adara's first steps and her first words.

" I'm just going to wait for all those moments. I dream about those

moments, " Marta said.

Adara and her family will be going home in a couple of months after a

series of follow-up visits.

A trust fund has been set up to help the family pay off some of the

expenses from the operation, which now total about $500,000.

Copyright 2003 by TheBostonChannel. All rights reserved. This

material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.