Hollis, Maine: A nine-year-old Maine girl is home from a Boston hospital healthy, active and with high hopes — and a new stomach, liver, spleen, small intestine, pancreas, and part of an oesophagus to replace the ones being choked by a huge tumour.
It's believed to be the first transplant of an oesophagus and the largest number of organs transplanted at one time in New England.
Lively and bright-eyed as she scampered around her family's farmhouse outside Portland, Alannah Shevenell said Thursday that she's glad to be feeling well again and able to go sledding, make a snowman, work on her scrapbooks and run rings around her grandmother.
The best part, though? "Being home," she said. "Just being home."
The tumour was discovered in 2008 and two efforts to remove it failed. After more than a year waiting for the organs to become available, the operation was done at Children's Hospital, Boston.
