Organ donor's liver gives Jaimee new lease on life

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

Jaimee Bouma was slowly dying as a result of liver damage until she received an "awesome gift", and now she has become a sparkling, full-of-life schoolgirl.

Now aged 5 1/2, Jaimee made medical history in February last year when at the age of 3 she became the youngest person to receive a liver transplant in New Zealand - a milestone since surpassed by a younger child.

She was also the first at the country's liver transplant unit, at Auckland Hospital, to have a liver transplant fail immediately after the operation.

Until Jaimee's operations, children under 7 needing a liver transplant had to go to Australia. Nine children under 7 years old have now had liver transplants at the Auckland unit.

"They are all alive and well," says its director, Professor Stephen Munn. Three children are on the waiting list for a transplant, all of them under 1 year old.

Jaimee had three liver transplants, after initially suffering a mystery disease thought to be a hepatitis virus.

Her immune system rejected the first transplant. She had received it in Australia in August 2001.

The second transplant, in Auckland, failed, but the third succeeded, giving her back, within months, a near-normal life as an active, "cheeky" child, as her mother, Linda Bouma, describes her.

Jaimee began at Pokuru School near Te Awamutu in June and has flourished.

"The teacher's report says, 'Jaimee is often full of sparkle at school, a confident little girl who enjoys life'."

"She's taken up ballet this year and performed in her first ballet recital, as a pony in a circus. She hasn't picked up any infections at school, which has been wonderful, considering she is immuno-suppressed."

Jaimee has weekly blood tests and monthly visits to the transplant unit and takes several anti-rejection drugs.

She has had no liver rejection problems for more than a year, but there was a scare mid-year when she started vomiting and became lethargic.

Ms Bouma took her to Auckland's Starship hospital, where she recovered after receiving intravenous fluids overnight. Staff said she must have suffered a drop in her blood sugar level - fluctuations are a common side-effect of one of her drugs.

"I was concerned as any mother would be, but you can't stress yourself over these things because we've been through much worse and you have to stay strong for your daughter."

Poems Ms Bouma wrote around the time of the transplants show how hard it was to stay strong: "There were sobs that racked my body and took away my breath."

Ms Bouma says she will be forever thankful to the deceased organ donors and their families for giving Jaimee another chance at life. She urges others to state they will become a donor after they have died, and families to agree. "It's just the most awesome gift; an absolutely amazing gift."