Marco Child Receives Long-Awaited Multi-Organ Transplant

By Elizabeth Wendt

After months of waiting and more than 12 hours of surgery on Monday night, Marco Island second-grader Amanda Buddemeyer received the gift her family has spent a lifetime hoping for - a multi-organ transplant.

"She is our angel," said Melissa Buddemeyer, Amanda's older sister. "She was given to us for a purpose. And now she gets to grow up and live that purpose."

Born eight weeks premature, 8-year-old Amanda suffers from chronic pseudo-obstruction myopathy, a condition where the digestive system lacks the muscles needed to process food and absorb any nutrients. Essentially, Amanda's digestive system is dead, and she has depended on potentially liver-damaging food substitutes her entire life.

In May, she was placed on a national transplant waiting list to receive a new stomach, small bowel and pancreas.

The Marco community rallied around the Tommie Barfield Elementary School student and her family, organizing blood drives to benefit Amanda and fund-raisers to offset the anticipated $350,000 cost of the transplant procedure.

As a multiple-organ transplant recipient, Amanda occupies a small portion of transplant statistics.

It is more common for a kidney and pancreas to be needed than a pancreas and intestine, said Anne Paschke, a spokeswoman for the United Network for Organ Sharing, a federally contracted nonprofit organization that manages the nation's organ transplant system.

UNOS records show that only one pancreas and intestine transplant has been performed in a child age 6 to 10 since 1988, Paschke said, and just 23 similar transplants have been performed in total.

On Monday morning, Amanda's parents, Monica and Mike Buddemeyer, were notified that the transplant would take place. They piled into the car with Amanda and headed to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami for what Amanda believed would be a routine trip to the hospital.

Later that evening, the Buddemeyers told their daughter the real reason.

"She was panicked at first," Melissa Buddemeyer said. "After she had processed it a little bit, she gave my parents the high five."

Amanda entered surgery at about 9 p.m. and was out of surgery at 1 p.m. on Tuesday. She received the stomach, small bowel and pancreas she needed, as well as a new spleen and some large intestine, Melissa Buddemeyer said.

"They did not realize she would need that much," she said.

Melissa Buddemeyer, who also lives on Marco, drove to Miami last night to see her sister. Still heavily sedated, Amanda will likely stay in the intensive care ward for two or more weeks, and remain in the hospital for more than a month, she said.

"I told her, 'Amanda, it's Missy,' and she opened up her eyes," she said.

Amanda has some minor liver damage caused by the food substitutes, but her doctors told the family those scars will heal, Melissa Buddemeyer said.

"She's going to live," she said. "She has that chance now."

Because her sister needed so many organs, the transplant almost seemed to be an impossible wish, Melissa Buddemeyer said.

"In the back of my mind, I had my doubts," she said. "This is a huge, huge thing. I never gave up hope, I never stopped praying and this was definitely a huge, huge miracle."

For Amanda's family, there is a sense of relief that the surgery is over, Melissa Buddemeyer said, but also a twinge of uncertainty as they prepare for whatever happens next.

And while her sister's prognosis is good, for now there is nothing to do "except sit and wait and watch," Melissa Buddemeyer said.

There is also a mixed sense of sorrow and thanks for the family of Amanda's donor.

"You can't help but also feel grateful because now my little sister gets to live," Melissa Buddemeyer said. "I've been praying for that family all day, and I wish there was a way I could personally thank them and grieve for them."

Copyright © 2003 Naples Daily News.

Published in Naples, Florida.

This article posted February 26, 2003.