New liver means big smiles
Second Kingston twin receives gift of transplant
Phuoc came home from hospital and was growing fast, shocking her parents with unprecedented appetite and energy. Just weeks after her adopted dad, Michael Wagner, donated a portion of his liver to her in a potentially life-saving transplant operation, the little girl was at home in Kingston, Ont. — doing somersaults.
At first it pained her mother to see Phuoc getting better while her sister Binh was still waiting for her own surgery. The three-year-old twins both needed liver transplants because of a rare genetic disorder.
Now, more than two months after Phuoc’s transplant surgery, her twin sister has finally followed suit with her own operation. The family announced Monday that Binh’s surgery was successful and that she is recovering well. She received a new liver from an anonymous donor sometime within the past month, according to a hospital release.
“I think if it had happened earlier it would have been crazy and too fast,” Wagner told the Star in late March, describing how she wanted Michael and Phuoc to be well on the way to recovery before the second twin went in for surgery.
“I know it is coming,” she said at the time. “She’s going to be fine.”
Binh and Phuoc, who were born in Vietnam, have Alagille syndrome, a condition that disrupts bile ducts in the liver and leads to a series of complications such as jaundice, chronic itchiness and stunted growth.
Like Phuoc and Michael’s surgeries, Binh’s transplant operation was carried out at Sick Kids and Toronto General. Doctors determined in February that the twins’ father should donate his liver to Phuoc because her condition was more advanced than Binh’s. After the well-publicized father-daughter surgery, hundreds of people applied to Toronto General, home of the country’s largest liver-transplant program, to be Binh’s donor.
A statement posted on the family’s Facebook page Monday asked for privacy and urged readers not to try and find out the identity of Binh’s organ donor. "There are not enough words to thank the amazing and so unselfish donor,” the statement says.
“Binh is recovering well, at her own pace. She has been through a lot with very different medical issues from her twin who had her transplant two months ago. We are looking forward to all being reunited and leading a healthier life now, with both transplants finally behind us.”
A separate post, accompanied by photos that apparently show Binh in the intensive care unit, indicates the young girl had “trouble with breathing” after the operation.
Later in the day, a video on the page showed Binh taking her “first steps” since the surgery.
Her twin returned home three weeks after her own operation to join her parents and eight siblings— including Binh, two others adopted from Vietnam and the Wagners’ five biological children at home.
“It’s great. She’s plumping up,” Wagner said. “She’s got that huge scar that’s healing wonderfully.”
She had a special “pick line” IV installed in her arm, through which she takes anti-viral drugs every day to prevent her body from rejecting her new liver. Phuoc has also been weaned off the special feeding formula that has sustained the twins since they started treatment in Canada after their adoption in November 2012.
Her itching, meanwhile, is much less intense, Wagner said, although her yellowish complexion, which is-caused by jaundice, has faded away, along with the tiny bumps that were once all over her skin, deposits of fat that her body couldn’t break down.
“She’s full of energy and eating like you wouldn’t believe,” Wagner said.
The family declined to speak with the media on Monday, but will hold a press conference with their doctors Tuesday.