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  • Sherry Brunson

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December 24, 2007

Tyler gets good prognosis and a nickname

SHERRY BRUNSON

Two-year-old Tyler Flowers of Pinetops and his father, Anthony, made it home Friday from Pittsburgh on an Angel Flight, which brought them straight into the small Tarboro airport.

Dr. Kyle Solyts, a pediatric transplant surgeon at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, said Tyler, who had a three-organ transplant in April, is doing great.

"There is no reason to think Tyler won't live a perfectly normal life," he said. "He runs around like any normal kid. We nicknamed him 'Bubbles' because we were blowing bubbles at him one day, and that was his first word. After that, that was the only word he would say, 'bubbles, bubbles' over and over again. I think his dad was ready for him to learn another word."

Anthony Flowers said Tyler had an infection when they arrived at the Children's Hospital on Dec. 10.

"When we first got there things were really miffed up, as to what was going on," he said. "Tyler had a line infection, which was why his liver count numbers went up so high. The doctors didn't want to do a biopsy, unless it was necessary, because it is so invasive, so they did an MRI first, which was totally normal. They told us we could leave the hospital, but now Pittsburgh, so we had to go to an inpatient clinic every day for blood work."

Solyts is passionately devoted to his patients, as is proven by the fact that Anthony has his cell phone number and pager number.

"I gave Dr. Solyts a call just last night to ask about something," Anthony said.

Solyts admits his specialty, which has many fewer patients than most doctors, means that he closely follows 200-300 patients at any given time.

"I guess I am not your normal doctor," he said. "Our team of four pediatric transplant surgeons are very close to our patients. I was just hanging out with Tyler's dad a couple of days ago. We are very available and specific to our patients. Most pediatricians couldn't handle Tyler if he went to the emergency room, so that means we get interesting calls from all over the country. When one of our kids are sick, there isn't a lot of time to go through a secretary, the way average doctors deal with things."

Because many families come from all over the world to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, and many of the families are split, between two locations, Solyts invites as many as 30-40 patients to his home for dinner on Christmas Eve.

Soltys said transplants usually involve two or three doctors, one to fly to the donor, make sure the organ looks acceptable, and remove and prepare the organ, while the other doctor prepares the patient to receive the organ. Surgery lasts anywhere from six to 20 hours.

"Once we begin a transplant surgery, everything becomes very labor-intense," Soltys said. "It becomes time that really isn't there, we get so absorbed in what we do.

"It's funny, but if you ask any of the four doctors on our team why went went into transplant surgery, none of us could tell you why, but once you do it, you don't want to do anything else."

The pediatric transplant team all have areas of research they are involved with, as well as the surgery.

"My area of research is storage of organs," Soltys said. "Dr Geoffrey Bond's is in the area of clinical intestinal transplantation; Dr. Rakesh Sindhi's is to find a way, other than the biopsy method we use today, to detect the rejection of intestinal transplants; and Dr. George Mazariegas is drug weaning."

Although Soltys is skilled at light-hearted banter, he is completely serious when speaking of the need for transplant donors.

As of mid-December, 98,194 people, many of them children, were waiting for a transplant, 21,401 transplants were performed from January through September; and 10,849 people were donors during the same period.

"Because we are pediatric transplant surgeons, most of the organs we receive are from donors who are young children," Soltys said. "This is very difficult for the family, and as a result, just 30 percent of those who could donate organs, do. That means that of every hundred children who wait, at any given time for a transplant, 40 percent die, before an organ is donated. It sometimes seems almost like a lottery.

"We would encourage parents to make something positive out of the horrible tragedy of the loss of their child by donating the child's organs. We have beautiful stories of donor's families and the recipient's families meeting.

Soltys said the type of transplant Tyler had, liver, spleen and small intestines, were in very short supply, as far as donors are concerned.

"We see one to two children a week who are candidates for intestinal transplant work, but only 30-40 actually need the transplant," he said. "The biggest thing I hear is that intestinal transplants don't work, or if they do have the surgery, the child won't survive. Many doctors of young children don't think there is any chance for children with intestinal transplant needs, many people actually have to push to receive a referral. People give up too easily. After five years 80 percent of our patients are still alive with a high quality of life. Their main problems are line infections, since most kids have intravenous lines in place."

Anthony Flowers is as passionate about organ donation as his wife, Dora.

"Donating organs is the big thing that needs to be done," he said. "Hundreds of kids in North Carolina can't get a small intestine transplant. Some of the kid's intestines just couldn't absorb food when they were born, so they have to have a transplant.

"Small intestines transplants have come so far, even since Tyler was born. When he was first evaluated, the success rate was in the 60 percentile range, now it is in the 90th percentile. They told us at the UNC Hospital that Tyler had no chance. We found out from another doctor about intestinal transplants and didn't give up."

Then, switching to a lighter mood, he said, "Tyler acts just like a normal two-year-old, full of energy. We're glad to be home."

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