Amanda Buddemeyer Desperate For New Organ Transplant

By Sun Times Staff

Amanda Buddemeyer, the 9-year-old Marco Island girl who underwent a multiple-organ transplant in January, is clinging to life at Jackson Memorial Medical Center in Miami at this hour (10/02/03).

Her body has been rejecting the new organs in varying degrees for the past eight months. Doctors recently advised that the rejection has gotten so bad that Amanda will have to repeat the transplant once an appropriate donor is identified.

Shortly before 8 p.m. on Oct. 1, Monica Buddemeyer sent an e-mail on her daughter's status to hundreds of well-wishers.

"There's no other way to describe Amanda's condition, but that she can't go much longer like this," Monica wrote. "She needs the transplant now."

Monica went on to write that Amanda's intestine was most recently diagnosed as nonfunctional, with bleeding and tissue coming apart. The 9-year-old underwent a tracheotomy two weeks ago, recently started on dialysis and is hooked up to at least a half dozen intravenous lines.

"This is now more dangerous and she's open for more problems, especially infection, which that alone can kill her," Monica wrote.

Christopher Tittel, editor of the Naples Sun Times and media coordinator for the Children's Organ Transplant Association (COTA) Fund for Amanda Buddemeyer, received a second email from Monica shortly thereafter.

"Amanda needs a donor now, and I need you to make people aware of her condition as well as becoming a donor child and adult," she wrote. "If there were somebody to pass away, that family can directly donate all their organs to Amanda. Never in my lifetime did I ever think I'd be thinking this, let alone writing this, but my daughter's life is at stake and the whole picture changes. I ask for all your prayers and try to understand how we can ask for this."

To learn more about Amanda, visit http://www.buddemeyerfamily.com/.

For more information, contact COTA Media Coordinator Christopher Tittel at (239) 642-9895.

If you'd like to donate to COTA: 1-800-366-2682; http://www.cota.org/ or 2501 COTA Drive, Bloomington, IN 47403.

Copyright © 2003 Marco Island Sun Times.

This article posted October 12, 2003.