Toddler doing well after kidney transplant

Toddler doing well after kidney transplant

By Brian Day, Staff Writer
Posted: 03/06/2009 12:51:33 PM PST

AZUSA - Vincent "Vinnie" Dodd looks like any other 2-year-old boy on the outside, though he carries inside him the kidney of a 14-year-old boy.

The Azusa toddler was the smallest child to ever receive a kidney transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles when he had his operation a month ago Friday, said Dr. Elaine Kamil, the Clinical Director of Pediatric Nephrology at the hospital.

His recovery appears to be going very smoothly, the doctor and Vinnie's parents, Mary and Ben Dodd, said.

"He beat so many odds," said Vinnie's mother, Mary Dodd said, adding that doctors at Children's Hospital Los Angeles initially expected Vinnie to survive only a week.

"You'd never know he had a kidney transplant a month ago," Mary Dodd said as Vinnie squirmed, giggled and played Thursday at their Azusa home. "He's full of so much energy."

Ben Dodd said he's proud of how his son has reacted to his medical problems and treatments.

"He was a little confused at first, but he's tough," the father said.

"We think he's going to do quite well," Kamil said. "We've been very fortunate."

She said the surgeons who performed the operation were transplant surgeon Dr. J. Louis Cohen, and pediatric urologist Dr. Andrew Freedman.

Though the right medical team is crucial in an operation such as this, Kamil said, Vinnie's good health can also be attributed to his parents.

"The success of taking care of
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a child like Vinnie is usually dependent on the devotion of the family," she said.

Mary Dodd said her son was born about two months premature and weighed only 1 pound, 12 ounces.

He had a small defect that prevented his kidneys from developing properly, she said.

After spending the first five months of his life attached to a breathing machine, doctors removed him from the device expecting he would die, the mother said.

Instead, Vinnie began breathing on his own, though doctors remained pessimistic about his chances of survival.

Mary Dodd said she got in contact with the Cedars-Sinai team through a Pasadena-based pediatrician familiar with their work.

In April of 2008, Vinnie was placed on dialysis and responded well to the treatment, the mother said.

On Feb. 5, Mary Dodd said she received a call telling her an organ donor had been found. He received his transplant the following day.

Two weeks after that, he rejoined his parents, his 21-year-old brother, Joe, and his 9-year-old step-brother, Tristan, at home.

In the month since the operation, Mary Dodd said her son has gained a full pound and developed a voracious appetite.

Mary Dodd said she's not yet been in contact with the family of the 14-year-old boy who donated his kidney to Vinnie.

"Every time I try to write the donor family, I break down in tears," she said. "If (the mother) wanted to meet me, I'd love to. Her son's organ saved my little baby's life."

Young children tend to do better when they receive kidney's donated from older people than from other children, Kamil said.

Since her son's transplant, Mary Dodd said she's become an active advocate for the non-profit organization Donate Life America, which seeks to educate the public about the need for donor organs and encourages people to register as donors.

Her own experience, she said, made her realize there are many other children in desperate need of organ transplants.

"The shortage of organs scares the life out of me," Mary Dodd said.

According to Donate Life, there are currently about 100,000 men, women and children in need of life-saving organ transplants. An average of 18 people die every day waiting for those organs to become available.

On Wednesday, Mary Dodd will be hosting a fundraiser from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Max's Cuisine in Covina, 635 N. Azusa Avenue, to raise sponsorships for friends and family who will be participating as "Team Vinnie" in the Donate Life Run/Walk Family Family Festival in Orange County in April.

The restaurant will donate 15 percent of proceeds to the team, she said.

Next year, Mary Dodd said said she plans to donate one of her kidneys to a transplant patient.

Kamil said Cedars-Sinai Medical Center performs about 200 kidney transplant operations per year, with only 10 being carried out on children. A kidney transplant on a child as young as Vinnie is carried out about once every two years.

"Vinnie got through it all," his mother said. "I'm just grateful for that."

brian.day@sgvn.com

(626) 962-8811, Ext. 2718