Patient Spotlight Stories
Zenobia Davis
Zenobia Diamond is a super woman — surviving hypertension, cancer, a heart attack and ultimately kidney failure. And if that wasn’t enough, while being evaluated for a kidney transplant, she discovered that her immune system was highly “sensitized” — her body would see a transplanted kidney as a foreign object and very likely reject it. But the VCU Health Hume-Lee Transplant Center didn’t give up. Our depth of experience with complex cases such as Zenobia’s allows us to “desensitize” patients whose immune system is more susceptible to rejection. The ability to provide the advanced care Zenobia needed allowed her body to accept the new organ, and in doing so gave her a second – third and fourth – chance at life.
Mya and Bridget Santini
“I would do anything for my child.” For Bridget Santini those words took on a whole meaning when her daughter Mya, just four years of age, needed a liver transplant to survive. Mya suffered from autoimmune hepatitis type 2, a chronic condition that most often affects girls age 2 to 14. Luckily, the team at Hume-Lee found that Bridget was a good match and would be able to donate a part of her liver to save her daughter’s life. Hume-Lee Transplant Center’s partnership with Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU allows us to provide children like Mya and their families peace of mind that they have access to the best care available before, during and after transplantation. Today, Mya is an 11-year-old dynamo. She plays softball, soccer and is a competitive gymnast — thanks to the gift of life given by her mother — not once, but twice.
Jimmy Murray
Jimmy Murray, a resident of Bracey, Virginia, suffered from heart failure and spent five months in the VCU Health Pauley Heart Center waiting for a transplant. On October 8, 2005, he received the ultimate gift of life — the heart of a young female from the New Jersey area.