8-Year-Old Quadruple Transplant Recipient Meets Family of 5-Year-Old Organ Donor

An 8-year-old girl underwent a rare quadruple organ transplant in November. She received organs from a 5-year-old who died of illness.

Kyree Beachem, who received the organs had the chance to meet the parents of 5-year-old Arianna Morales, at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.

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‘The transplant recipient had been waiting five years for the small bowel, colon, liver and pancreas transplant. The 5-year-old has given the gift of life to other three children in need.’

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Kyree Beachem, an 8-year-old quadruple-organ transplant recipient, recently got to meet the parents of 5-year-old Arianna Morales, who donated her organs to Beachem when she passed away in November.

Kyree was suffering from Hirschprung's Disease, a condition she was born within which she has missing nerve cells from her colon, making it difficult to digest food.

Kyree's mother, Nan Beachem, said, “Arianna's parents Luis and Evelyn Morales visited Kyree at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, where Kyree has been recovering from surgery and receiving treatments for Hirschprung's Disease.”

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"It was a very, very emotional meeting. No one broke down and sobbed, but there were a lot of quiet tears," said Beachem.

“Moraleses stayed with Kyree for more than five hours, sharing stories about Arianna, who they discovered had a lot more in common with Kyree than just matching organs. Both of them have big dimples, a love of baseball and guitars and 'Frozen' is everything to them," Kyree's mother said. "We felt very connected."

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Arianna's mother Evelyn Morales said, "It was really nice to get to meet this little girl who was so much like our daughter and was a fighter, too, just like Arianna."

Evelyn Morales, said, “Arianna passed away in November when she suddenly became ill.” She added that Arianna had holoprosencephaly, a condition in which her brain did not properly grow and divide when she was a fetus, but she said she believes the condition was unrelated to her death.

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"It's so hard to think Arianna's not here with us anymore, focusing on all the positive things coming from her life is amazing," Morales said. "She's raising awareness for organ donation and holoprosencephaly. She wasn't even expected to make it much past birth, but she did and showed people that they can have hope even with these terrible prognoses."

Beachem said, “Kyree had been waiting five years for the small bowel, colon, liver and pancreas transplant after her bowel failed in 2010 and the resulting IV fluids she had to be on for 22 hours damaged her other organs.”

Arianna's organ donation not only gave Kyree a chance to live, and also helped three other children in need.

Source-Medindia