Young transplant recipients unite for a breakfast

On their way to the first of four-a-week dialysis sessions, Amelia Matthews and her mother, Brenda, stopped in for breakfast Monday at the state health department building. They were invited guests to the first reunion of a few of the 80 transplant recipients who have received a financial boost from the Kurt Oscarson Children's Organ Transplant Fund, a group that the 2-year-old has yet to join but her folks hope she will very soon.

Although the breakfast burrito was pretty good, the bow tied in the back of her rose-print dress was what Amelia thought deserved the most attention.

"Oh, and this," she said, directing attention to the round bandage and small catheter just below her left shoulder where her body becomes part machine for 16 hours a week.

Her life is 100 percent dependent on dialysis to cleanse her blood, which runs unpurified through her system because she's had both kidneys removed. That was the only choice after doctors discovered a rare genetic defect had put her in acute renal failure at 11 months and had rendered the set she was born with useless.

She's on the machine so much that she has her own velvet bean bag chair, and on Fridays, she gets the salon treatment — dialysis and her hair done.

"We've been waiting two years next month for a transplant," Brenda Matthews told the newspaper. As an emergency room nurse, "I knew a little about transplants and the process. But I've gotten to know it a lot better than I'd ever thought I would. She's tired of going through it, it's time consuming and it seems like it's about all we do sometimes."

Amelia is a special case because of her age. Doctors have passed on at least two donated kidneys because they weren't fully functional.

No matter how well they function and how well they're matched, she'll be in for an uphill, expensive but ultimately precious journey, transplant recipients and their families said.

Ixel Miguel, 15, received a new heart seven years ago and has had some ongoing rejection struggles. But the 12 pills she takes every day to keep the heart as welcome as the one that at age 8 nearly gave out have kept her hospital stays rare.

"I remember that just walking to the kitchen I felt like I had run a mile," she said, noting that she's still taking things slow but has enough energy "that I want to try out for the volley ball team next year."