It was February 2013, and Sandra Pearson will never forget the words she heard on the other end of the telephone. "We are sorry to inform you that the test results are positive."
She had breast cancer. A couple of weeks earlier, her doctor had discovered a lump in Sandra’s breast. At the suggestion of her good friend, Sandra went to Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven where she met with Anees Chagpar, MD, director of the Breast Center at Smilow for an exam and more testing.
A year ago, Richard Kenney found it difficult to walk up a flight of stairs. By the time he got to the top, he was weak and out of breath.
Richard, 79, had spent his career traveling all over the world as owner of a company that manufactured industrial x-ray equipment. Having his movements restricted by a worsening heart condition was both frustrating and sobering.
"It was getting really bad," he said. "I couldn’t exercise, I couldn’t walk. I was worried about traveling anywhere by myself."
On December 30, 2012, just over a year after the Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID) screenings were adopted in Connecticut, LaShelle gave birth to her third child, a son named Zailyn. It was a normal birth and as is routine in Connecticut, Zailyn’s nurse applied a few drops of his blood to a piece of filter paper before he was discharged from the hospital. A few days later, LaShelle’s pediatrician called her with alarming news. Zailyn tested positive for SCID and needed to be evaluated immediately by a pediatric immunologist.
“It was just after Thanksgiving,” Father John Georgia, Pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Wallingford, Connecticut, recalled, speaking of the November holiday in 2012.
“My colleague said, ‘You look terrible. You are going to a doctor. Now.’ Before I knew it, I was admitted to Yale New Haven Hospital with acute liver disease.”
When the team at Yale New Haven, including Michael Schilsky, MD, medical director, Adult Liver Transplant in the Yale New Haven Transplantation Center (YNHTC) and Manuel Rodriguez-Davalos, MD, transplant surgeon, met Father Georgia, he’d been suffering from advanced liver disease for some time. His liver disease progressed so much that it affected his kidneys and he was then in need of both a liver and kidney transplant.
