Gave the Baby the Gift of Life

Gave the Baby the Gift of Life

Tekin GÜRBULAK/İZMİR, (DHA) - The social media appeal for help made by Ayşegül Tuvanç (28), mother of 11-month-old Ahmet Eren Yüklendi, a cirrhosis patient for whom no one in the family could be a donor because of a blood group mismatch, was answered. İbrahim Ulaş (30), a factory worker who himself has a 10-month-old son, turned helplessness into happiness. The piece of liver taken from Ulaş was successfully transplanted into Ahmet Eren at İzmir Kent Hospital. The little baby, whose treatment continues, is waiting for the day he will be discharged. From Konya's Se

HE GAVE MY SON LIFE
When the baby was 57 days old he was sent to Ankara, to Gazi University Faculty of Medicine Hospital, for a Kasai operation (opening of the bile duct), and his mother Ayşegül Tuvanç described the helplessness of being unable to be a donor and of finding no donation from a deceased donor, and how, thanks to social media, her baby began a second life:
“Our paediatrician suspected on Ahmet Eren's very first day of life that he had no bile ducts. He was right to suspect it, but the definitive diagnosis was made only at the end of 2 months, and we were sent from Konya to Ankara for surgery. They told us he would need a transplant. Because our blood groups did not match, we could not be donors. They said they would put his name on the deceased-donor list, but they did not give much hope; they said he would die. His condition was getting worse and worse, he was eating nothing. They told us to find relatives who could be donors up to the 4th degree. We looked as far as 10th degree relatives; those who were suitable got scared and ran away, and those who volunteered turned out not to be suitable. I wrote a post on social media that began with ‘I am a mother’. I, who normally cannot put two lines of text together, wrote a message in which I cried over every word.

Within half an hour this message of mine had reached up to 15 thousand people. I had no idea something like this could happen, that it would touch people's hearts. So many people called, including those who had lost their children to this disease and those who were fighting it. While searching online I read a news story titled ‘Three Babies, One Destiny’. It was about the liver transplants of three babies, one of them two months old, at İzmir Kent Hospital because of biliary atresia. My son was older and heavier. A transplant was possible, and most of the volunteers who wanted to give a liver were from İzmir, so I decided to come to Kent Hospital for the transplant. I had been worn down both financially and emotionally. Here, without paying a single kuruş, and with friendly service from the doctors to the nurses, I was filled with hope again. Among the volunteers, İbrahim Ulaş was found to be suitable. About Ahmet Eren he said ‘He is my child too’, and I understood that he would not back out. On 8 August the transplant was successfully performed by the team led by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Murat Kılıç and Op. Dr. Cahit Yılmaz. Thanks to Brother İbrahim, Ahmet Eren was born again. I gave birth to him, but it was Brother İbrahim who gave him his childhood and his life. I was going to teach my son about life, but he taught us about life. He taught us that in life ambitions, anger, hatred, money, enmity, everything is unnecessary, and that being human is enough in this world just to love one another.”

AHMET EREN BECAME MY SECOND SON
İbrahim Ulaş (30), who works at a ceramics factory in Turgutlu district of Manisa and has a son named Buğra, born on 8 November 2017, one month younger than Ahmet Eren, expressed his feelings as follows:
“While working the night shift I saw Ayşegül Tuvanç's request for help. She was looking for a liver donor for her son. I talked to my wife Esra (30). She did not hesitate either. If the transplant went ahead I would be away from work for a while, so I spoke with my workplace too. I got their approval. My wife, my family, my managers at work, all of them stood behind my decision. I reached out to the mother, the tests were done, and I turned out to be suitable. In the end we are happy. I also have a son of the same age. God forbid, something like this could happen to me too; it is very bad to be helpless. Now we are all happy; saving a baby's life is a wonderful thing. I did my duty as a human being. Now Ahmet Eren is my second son, and they will grow up together with my son.”
THE NUMBER OF DECEASED-DONOR DONATIONS NEEDS TO INCREASE
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Murat Kılıç, Head of the Liver Transplantation Department at İzmir Kent Hospital, drawing attention to the insufficiency of donations from deceased donors, said: “Ahmet Eren's condition was very serious; without a transplant we would have lost him. It has been a month since the transplant, and we have discharged his donor. In a few days we will discharge Ahmet Eren too. Saving a life is important; for patients who have no donor, transplants from volunteers like this are performed by decision of the ethics committee. However, there is a risk, even if small, for living donors. That is why the best thing is to see that deceased-donor donations increase. We think that campaigns in social media and in the print and visual media would be healthier for increasing deceased-donor donations.”