Featured Story It Has Been A Rough Year
I am adding this additional chapter to my introduction, because after I initially wrote the introduction, it was very difficult to come back to it and try to make sense of all that I have experienced through the various stages of my life and the trials that I have endured or overcome. I wish ...
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| The Birth of Charles Leonard Wiggins
The story has already been written for awhile on my blog "From the heart of Praise, Prayer and Perseverance. 0; Here is a link to that posting, Below are the pictures of the blessed event.
http://fromthehea rt-dotwigg.blogsp ot.com/2008/03/an other-2-prayer-re quest-answered.ht ml
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Browse for more stories Krisna's Story > Chapters > A New Chance at Life
| Date Range: 01/01/1980 To 12/31/1984 |
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| Views: 9,786 | | | | Attachments: Yes [1 Images] |
This story is taken from an article published in the Kent Daily News Journal on March 10, 1980 about me and my dad! A child receiving a kidney transplant at that time was not a common thing so the newspaper jumped at the chance when my dad notified them about the surgery. We were pictured on the front page of the newspaper which sold in most of the county. I'll have to scan the picture again when I get my new scanner hooked up. I found this copy of the picture in my genealogy program. Luckily I was able to copy it from the genealogy file. I figured since it was about me, it was okay to reprint it.
Family bond strengthened by father's gift of kidney
Eight-year old Krisna Reece of Kent has a stronger bond with her daddy than most children.She now has her father's kidney. The kidney was transplanted February 27 in Swedish Hospital Medical Center and is working better in Krisna than the one in her father, Jerry Reece has left.
But the prognosis for both is good. Reece, a 30 year- old Seattle school custodian, is now out of the hospital and recuperating at home - in between visits to Krisna.
Reece and his wife Judy have learned a lot about kidney disease since Krisna became ill last fall. And Krisna "understands the whole thing," said her father. "She knew it wasn't just like having the flu or something that she would get over right away. She knew it could threaten her life."
Month of dialysis
Krisna is a second grader at Pine Tree Elementary School in Kent. She didn't get to go to school too much this year. After her ailment was diagnosed in November, she spent a month undergoing dialysis on an artificial kidney machine and Children's Orthopedic Hospital in Seattle.
Doctors gave the family the choice of continuing dialysis or transplanting a kidney.
"We asked the doctors if we could go this way - a transplant," said Krisna's parents, aware that continuing dialysis would deprive Kris of freedom for ordinary childhood activities and might limit her development.
Krisna could had waited for a cadaver kidney, usually taken from accident victims, but physicians said that the chances of it functioning well were not as good as if kidney were donated from a member of her immediate family. Krisna has two sisters, Kari and Kelli but they are too young to donate organs. That left her parents. Mrs. Reece was not of Krisna's blood type and so couldn't be a donor.
Almost perfect match
Her father was an almost perfect match, not only in blood type but also in antigens (organisms in the blood that cause antibodies to develop that may reject the transplant.)
Mr. and Mrs. Reece have spent as much time as they can at Krisna's bedside in Swedish Medical Center. Kari, 2, and Kelli, 7 months, stayed with their grandmother, Launetta Reece, in Snoqualmie so their parents could be at the hospital.
Krisna doesn't complain about having to be in bed. She watches a lot of television and draws and colors. Her classmates have sent cards. And nestled on her be is a little black and white plush dog called "Doorknob," sent by her teacher, Doris Amundson. Her father's coworkers also have showered her with puzzles and other quiet toys.
Her favorite, a gift from hospital volunteers, is a tiny ballerina activated by a magnetic mirror. Krisna uses strips of bandage to plot its intricate dance steps.
No date has been set for her return home - and it may be a while before she's back in her classroom. But Krisna smiles and shakes her head when asked if she misses school a lot. | |