Hannah Lendor, who is hooked up to an oxygen
machine as a result of advanced liver
cirrhosis, at her home in Sea Lots,
Port-of-Spain, is comforted by her mother
Arlene. Photo: Jennifer Watson

With a sullen, sickly look on her face Hannah Lendor sits on her bed crouched against a wall at her home in Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain. The nine-year-old is nothing like girls her age; she is depressed and hardly speaks, she does not run and play, she can’t enjoy an occasional pizza, French fries and fried chicken. Her diet consists of mainly steamed vegetables. She is mostly confined to her home. Hannah suffers from a rare liver disease, advanced liver cirrhosis, which may be as a result of an auto-immune hepatitis. The disease is in its final stage which means that every day that passes may be Hannah’s last. She has to be constantly hooked up to a machine to ensure enough oxygen gets to her brain. If she stays off the machine for too long she suffers from seizures.

The only cure for the disease is a liver transplant, which can be done at the Metropolitan Policlinica in Caracas, Venezuela at a cost of $1.3 million. Doctors at the hospital said if she did not get the transplant done by December, she would die. The child’s mother, Arlene Lendor, will be the liver donor. Part of the million-dollar medical bill includes a series of tests which must be performed on Arlene to ensure her liver was suitable for transplant.

Behind in school
All Hannah wants to do is to return to school. She is tired of being sick, her mother said. In 2006 the child became ill. Teachers at her school noticed that she became lethargic and that her fingers were blue. Eventually, because of the constant illness, her mother had to take her out of school. She has been home for almost two years now. “I took her to clinic on George Street (Port-of-Spain) as well as and Mt Hope and they ran a lot of tests, but doctors could not tell what was wrong with her,” said Hannah’s mother.

She said it was only in May, through the Hispanic Women’s Organisation, that she was able to take Hannah to a hospital in Caracas. It was only then doctors discovered she had a liver disease. Lendor said because of the illness Hannah has forgotten even how to spell her name. “She has problems counting; when she starts back school she will have to return to First Year,” she said. “She was bright, all now so she would be running outside, laughing and chatting up a storm. Now she is depressed and she cannot understand why she is so sick,” the distraught mother added.

Lendor, a single mother, who turned 40 yesterday, had to quit her job at Subway in 2007 to take care of Hannah full-time. “She needs 150 per cent of my time,” she said. She gets financial assistance from her church, relatives and friends, to meet her daily expenses as well as support her other two children, Nadia, 18 and Joel, 19.
To date Lendor has been able to raise $40,000 towards Hannah’s operation. But she is pleading with business entities and “good Samaritans” to assist her in raising the rest of the money.

What is cirrhosis?

It is a condition in which the liver slowly deteriorates and malfunctions due to chronic injury. The most common cause of this disease is chronic hepatitis C. Scar tissue replaces healthy liver tissue, partially blocking the flow of blood through the liver. Scarring also impairs the liver’s ability to:
• control infections
• remove bacteria and toxins from the blood
• process nutrients, hormones, and drugs
• make proteins that regulate blood clotting
• produce bile to help absorb fats—including cholesterol—and fat-soluble vitamins.

A healthy liver is able to regenerate most of its own cells when they become damaged. With end-stage cirrhosis, the liver can no longer effectively replace damaged cells. The only cure for advanced cirrhosis is a liver transplant.
Source: www.digestive.niddk.nih.gov