| From the Grafton Daily Examiner
LITTLE girls with red hair, blue eyes, hearts of gold and a wicked sense of humour should not have to go through their first eight years of life in pain.
Especially when they’re called Poppy Jazz.
It’s such a cute name for just about the cutest kid you’ve ever seen but it’s only now, after her second liver transplant, that eight- year-old Poppy Jazz Macleod, of Wooloweyah, is able to let go of a pained expression, irritability that arises from feeling sick all the time and of course the fatigue that takes over a little body that is continuously fighting to keep itself alive.
Her previously yellow skin has begun to glow now, her once exhausted expression has vanished to make way for the light and Poppy suddenly wants to go to the beach.
“She was never interested in going swimming before,” said Poppy’s mum, Wendy-Ann yesterday.
“She was always too sick, too tired, too cranky.
“Poppy hasn’t really changed, I could always see who she is, but now everyone else gets to see how gorgeous she is, not just me.”
Wendy-Ann got the phone call she’d been waiting for at 1.30am on a night not long before Christmas. There was a compatible liver on its way to the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and Wendy-Ann had about 10 minutes before the ambulance arrived to take her and Poppy to Grafton Airport.
“The Red Cross organized it all,” said Wendy-Ann. “They had us in Sydney by 5am. All the way down, all I could think of was the idea that someone – probably a child, had just died somewhere; that a family was in grief. I felt so sad but it probably stopped me from feeling scared for Poppy.
“By the time we got to the hospital, my mind turned to her and what was about to happen. We’d been through this before when she was only 13 months old, but then she had complications of internal bleeding and she’d had months in hospital before the transplant.
“This time, things hadn’t deteriorated so badly, so it was already a better start. It is scary, but we had the same brilliant surgeon, Dr (Albert) Shun – he knows us, he knows Poppy and when you know he’s on board, you feel fine.”
Poppy’s first liver transplant went well, but a subsequent virus meant she was unable to absorb the anti-rejection drugs and she spent the next six years struggling – sometimes critically ill, on and off the waiting list for another liver.
Home for just a week, Poppy has joined her older siblings – twins, Hannah and Liam who spent the past six weeks in one room at the hospital with Wendy-Ann and their father.
Hannah and Liam are back at school, but Poppy will be up and down to Sydney for a while yet for monitoring – there is some concern for one of the connecting arteries.
We asked Wendy-Ann what it was like for her during the 12 hour operation.
“I gave myself blisters from pacing,” she said.
“The other thing I would do was to have these head conversations and compose what to say in ‘thank-you’ cards to people who have helped me so much – like my case worker Kerrie Birch from Community Options and my friend Brian who has lent me his car and my good friend Penny in Maclean.” |
