Articles labeled: organ donor

Brianna Jeffries, a 4-year-old with a “rare cancerlike condition”, is amongst the thousands of people in Illinois alone that is waiting for an organ transplant. She’s been hoping to receive a liver transplant for 6 months now, and without one her health is likely to continue to deteriorate. That’s why we here at MT urge people and their families to become organ donors — someday you might be able to save a life like Brianna’s, and provide a “miracle”.

Brianna has a rare cancerlike condition that ultimately destroyed the bile ducts in her liver. Without them, Brianna’s liver can’t absorb fat from the food she eats, leaving her chronically malnourished.

A liver transplant would allow her to grow to a normal height and weight. But Brianna can’t get one until complications from her illness — Langerhans cell histiocytosis — can be brought under control.

As sick as she is, it’s hard to see Brianna as anything other than a lively preschooler who likes “Dora the Explorer,” drawing pictures and singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to all who will listen.

“She’s definitely the life of the floor,” Brianna’s mom, Veronica Jeffries, said while watching her daughter chat with nurses at the University of Chicago’s Comer Children’s Hospital.