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annie, having just come on and read this thread, i am almost crying for this poor wee girl and her family. what a cruel thing life is sometimes. i really hope the chemo will get rid of it all and she makes a total recovery.
having been through my own child with cancer was enough but this family have been through so much more, you wonder how they get the strength to cope.
i will be sending them millions of healing thoughts and be thinking of them all.
florencex
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The poor little thing only 4 years old has been though so much in her short life to now be dealt another blow to her health.
The following story taken from stuff.co.nz:
A multi-organ transplant saved Aria MacDonald's life, but the four-year-old now faces a cruel twist – a probable cancer diagnosis.
Aria, from Auckland, received a liver, kidney, pancreas and small bowel transplant at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha last May – her second transplant after an earlier one failed.
She was born with a rare condition that stopped her from digesting food, and would have died of liver failure without a successful transplant.
Aria and her family have stayed in Omaha while she recovers from the transplant.
But last Friday, doctors gave her parents bad news – test results showed there was an 85 per cent chance Aria had developed post-transplant cancer.
Her mother, Anita MacDonald, said the diagnosis was not yet confirmed but it was a tough turn of events.
"Who has two transplants and then gets cancer?"
Aria's medical team was also upset, she said. "They've fought so hard for her."
Although it was a serious complication, the cancer would not necessarily be life-threatening, Mrs MacDonald said.
"The survival rates are about 85 per cent. It's not fully terrible but it's not great either."
The results of biopsies taken yesterday were due back in the next day or so. In the meantime, Aria has begun a course of chemotherapy in case the diagnosis was confirmed.
Mrs MacDonald said she and husband Hamish were "trying to keep rational and calm".
They hoped a cancer diagnosis would not prevent the family from returning to New Zealand later this year, as planned. "We're really keen to get home."
Risks of Weak Immune System
Post-transplant cancer is usually caused when a transplant patient contracts Epstein-Barr virus, which causes glandular fever.
Epstein-Barr causes the body's B-cells to multiply rapidly. In a healthy person, this is kept under control by T-cells.
However, people who have recently had transplants have suppressed immune systems, to stop their bodies rejecting the new organs, and this stops the T-cells from doing their job.
As the B-cells continue to multiply, some will mutate, leading to lymphomas and other cancers.
She needs all of our positive thoughts and prayers.
Annie
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