{"id":8206,"date":"2020-07-28T15:35:01","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T05:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=8206"},"modified":"2020-07-28T15:35:01","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T05:35:01","slug":"donatelife-week-evies-second-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/donatelife-week-evies-second-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"DonateLife Week: Evie\u2019s second chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Evie\u2019s family will never forget being told their six-year-old daughter would die if she did not have a liver transplant within 48 hours. <\/strong><\/p>\n

In March last year, Evie\u2019s health dramatically declined due to an undiagnosed genetic condition. Evie suffered a number of nose bleeds, refused to eat her food, and said she didn\u2019t want to go to school because she felt unwell.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Evie’s story highlights the importance of organ donation. Photo by Penny Stephens.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When blood tests revealed her liver wasn’t functioning correctly, she was rushed to The Royal Children’s Hospital. Evie was taken to the intensive care unit a number of times where doctors discovered she had a rare, previously undiagnosed genetic condition called Wilson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

Doctors told Evie\u2019s parents, Natasha and Erich, that their daughter needed an urgent liver transplant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe realisation that your child is critically ill, that the medical team has done everything they can, and that the last resort to keep Evie alive was a liver from a donor, was so hard to process,” Natasha said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just have to hope that there is a donor who is a match. I prayed they would find a donor for her even though I knew someone else would lose their loved one. I wanted to take my daughter home smiling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remarkably, thanks to the generosity of an organ donor, Evie\u2019s life was saved.<\/p>\n

“There was a huge sense of relief and gratitude to the donor and their family, as well as the surgeons, doctors, nurses and the geneticists who were a part of her care. However there was also some sadness to it, as we knew there was a family who had said goodbye to someone they love,” said Natasha.<\/p>\n

Evie is now enjoying life back on her family\u2019s farm, and loves going to school and playing with her brothers.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is such a happy and healthy little girl. You wouldn\u2019t know she has had a liver transplant unless you saw her scar.\u201d<\/p>\n

This DonateLife week, Evie\u2019s mum is encouraging everyone to have a conversation about organ donation with their loved ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout organ donation we wouldn\u2019t have Evie with us today. It is the most selfless gift you can give to someone\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you do choose to be an organ donor, have conversations with your loved ones so they are aware of your decision.”<\/p>\n

Donate Life week is a national campaign which encourages more Australians to register as organ and tissue donors. For more information, or to register your decision to become a donor, visit:\u00a0https:\/\/donatelife.gov.au\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evie\u2019s family will never forget being told their six-year-old daughter would die if she did not have a liver transplant within 48 hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":8209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8206"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8225,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8206\/revisions\/8225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}