Teen Extra Thankful After Transplant

Teen Extra Thankful After Transplant
Updated: Thursday, 24 Nov 2011, 7:59 AM EST
Published : Thursday, 24 Nov 2011, 7:49 AM EST

Tacoma
Perry
By TACOMA PERRY/myfoxatlanta

ATLANTA, Ga. - Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for the people who are in our lives and the things we have, and one local family is sharing their reason for celebrating. A young loved one has just received the gift of life.

It's a disease that’s hard to even pronounce, but 15-year-old Summer Dionne knows it all too well. It’s called focal glumerinal schlorosis. Summer was diagnosed with the kidney disorder when she was just 13 months old.

“One day I put her to bed and got her back up,” said Grace Ward, Summer’s grandmother. “She was all swollen up. I couldn't see her eyes, I couldn't see her hands. I couldn't, she had like slits in her eyes. I couldn't really recognize her.”

Doctors told her grandmother that Summer would need a kidney transplant. And doctors performed the surgery just months before her second birthday. But just six years later, the disease came back and Summer had to go back on the list for yet another transplant.

That meant dialysis every single day, often making her too weak to go to school. But after eight long years of waiting for a kidney, they got the call. Her grandmother says it was the happiest day of their lives.

Doctors say Summer is doing well after the transplant performed at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston.

“Now it's a lot better because I don't have to do dialysis and I can eat what I want and drink what I want, except for grapefruit but I don't really like that that much,” Summer said.

And although Summer and her grandmother will be spending Thanksgiving in the Ronald McDonald House while she recovers, both say gratitude is on the menu.

“I'm just bubbling over with gratitude and thankfulness for the donor and for this hospital, and the nurses and the doctors that she finally got the life-changing and saving organ that she needed,” said Ward.

“I'm thankful for my family because they're always there whenever I need them, and then I'm thankful for getting a kidney transplant and the nurses and doctors up here that help me get it,” said Summer.

Despite missing more than 80 days of school last year, Summer has managed to maintain high grades in her school's gifted program. This Thanksgiving is also special to Summer for another reason. She’s celebrating her 16th birthday.

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/local_news/teen-thanksgiving-transplant-20111124-es