Hello and welcome to the Gifted Life Podcast where we have conversations about organ tissue and ideonation and transplantation. You can always find us at thegiftedlife.org. I'm Maurice Deel. I'm Joey Boudreau.
I'm Sarah Blake-Warm and coming up on the Gifted Life today. We'll be talking about the transformation that took place when one baby received the gift of sight. And we're going to talk about how therapeutic laughter can be for stress. All that more coming up on this episode of the Gifted Life.
Stay tuned. Here on the Gifted Life we'd like to introduce you to some new friends. We have De La Ria Dunlap. She's the mom of a pediatric corneal transplant recipient, a thriving five-year-old.
Come on. I love it. And we're also pleased to introduce you to Kyle Mayven. He's the interim executive director of Southern Eye Bank.
We appreciate you joining us too, sir. Yeah, thank you for doing my good work, too. Yeah, and we have a lot to talk about and to dissect here on the Gifted Life. But mom, we want to talk to you first.
So tell us about this five-year-old, this advanced five-year-old we're learning, right? Tell us her name and tell us how she's doing. My daughter is Ari Dunlap. She is five years old.
She's been pre-k. She had her transplant done when she was two years old. And she is just of all of life. It's been amazing to see how strong she's been without the surgery she's had.
So it's just been a journey for us. And we were championing you as well, mom, because they were signs early on right after she was born that you started noticing, right? Can you walk us through how we got to where you are today that she is a transplant recipient of the gift of sight? Yes, ma'am.
When she was born, she was like, I want to say about eight pounds, six ounces, perfectly healthy baby. About six months into her birth, I started noticing a change in her eyes. And we went to her pediatrician, and she sent us to the eye doctor. And when we first went, he looked and he said he didn't quite notice anything.
And so, he still didn't sit right with me. So I took her back to her pediatrician, and she sent us back. And immediately, the second time we went, he walked in a dark room, and we were maybe about 12 feet away from each other. And he looked and he said, oh, ma'am, I'm sorry, something is wrong with her eye.
I'm going to say her to a specialist in Shreveport. And I said, okay. And when we went to the specialist in Shreveport, the next week he scared her of her surgery. I believe he could have stayed in her eye.
He was saying that her tear duct wasn't producing very well. So she started having surgeries about six months in and that went on up until now. So let me stop you. So a tiny baby, six months old, you have to have these surgeries.
And what I heard from your stories that you noticed, and you kept pushing, championing for your child. So I mean, I can feel the love there. But what was that like for you with these major procedures, it sounds like on this baby? It's scary because I just, I didn't know.
And to say she had to have surgery on her eye, I didn't know if it was a possibility of her being blind, how it was going to handle that. And you know, in today's society, with different changes, even adults noticed things and they called out things and say things. And I didn't know how that would affect herself as Dean. So I just, it was a lot going on.
I just didn't know what to say. But thanks to my family who are very good strong support systems, they're praying that it was like, we'll get through this, we'll know what to do. Then I had to actually work that was a retired supervisor of special education. So she kind of knew the different things to look for.
I'm curious. So as a proud dad of a little one year old, she turned one this past week, I'm curious as to how you were able to pick up on these things. I know we noticed things, and I'm thinking about Blakely, my daughter, you know, I noticed how she plays different things. As she's growing, different things, little small, mini milestones.
But you were able to pick up something that even a doctor, when you brought her to an eye doctor, they couldn't pick up. So what was it for the listeners that also may have babies out there? What was it that you were able to pick up that drew your attention to say that something's clearly wrong? I know as a parent, when we first have children, even though she wasn't my first baby, you know, like they said, you have kids, you make sure they have all their fingers, their toes, all the marks on them.
And he's just looking at her eyes. It was like they were a perfectly dark brown color. And then once started to slightly turn gray, it's like it just slightly starts to turn gray and it would get grayer and grayer. And you know, it looked like every time you looked at her.
So that was like real concern for me. I was like, maybe it's like a reflection, but it actually, it wasn't. Wow. So just picking up, you know, the fact that such beautiful brown eyes and then you notice these subtle changes like this.
So was there anything with maybe milestones or maybe crawling or sitting or walking that you noticed any delays that it caused any issues there? No, one thing with that, it didn't. And that's what shocked me. She still was able to crawl.
It just was a fear of her maybe kind of walking into certain things as she began to get older. She became a big help. I mean, she's my number one child about to, because she helps out. She's like a mini version of me.
She's going to make sure everybody gets up, they get dressed, they do what they're supposed to do. She helps with laundry. She helps does everything with the main concern was, I know one time she was helping and she kind of walked into the wall. So that's the only thing, you know, kind of getting her focused on certain things, but other than that, she's exhaled in everything.
And so you mentioned just a minute ago about her having a surgery and in multiple surgeries potential. So at what point did they finally diagnose her with primary congenital glaucoma? And what do you think when you heard that? First, like most people, if you're not well educated on it, you're thinking, okay, that only happens with older people.
So it was like a shop to hear that she had glaucoma and then they say sometimes, you know, that mostly it's hereditary and nobody in my family had experienced glaucoma. So, you know, I just had to read up on it and educate myself when it came to her diagnosis. Because also when she was born, she, when we found it out, she started getting these like, I want to say, lesions, she had them on her nose and in her hair. She had one on her leg and she also had a heart murmur, like some issues with her heart.
So they were trying to connect everything together and say, maybe with something else. And this, and I just, I want to commend her pediatrician because when we brought her in and she looked at it, she made sure she got to the, in connect with the right people. She sent her to a dermatologist to have one of them removed and he came back benign. She had a great heart doctor.
Her murmur has closed. We went to Shreveport and they were kind of like, they told me she needed a transplant. They were kind of like giving me the run around and I came back and I said, look, I told her pediatrician. She had everything before and I said, I'm just not pleased.
I'm not happy. I said, they keep telling me she needed it. But nobody's telling me exactly when they're going to do it, how it's going to be done. So she said, give me a while and I'm going to look for you doctor, especially in the war.
She said, do you mind traveling? I don't, when it comes to my child, where everybody needs it up. So she put me in touch with Dr. Ellis in the war, and from there everybody, she has come in contact with.
It's been great. So, so for the listeners out there, I'm going to tie in Kyle Maven in here. He's the, as we said earlier, the interim executive director for Southern Eye Pink. So Kyle, you know, she's talking about glaucoma and in her experience in the past, it's an adult disease.
And also, I can tell you about 25 year registered nurse and you know, kind of the same way. I knew there were different causes, but in general, glaucoma for me is someone that doesn't get a lot of transplants and there's someone that has diabetes and usually it's controlling the diabetes for the control of the glaucoma. So can you tell us a little bit about this particular disease and how it's different from that of the ones that we always tend to think about? Yeah, thanks.
And you're right. You know, when our listeners here at glaucoma, they go unoldering at uncle grandparents, you know, and we very rarely hear the story of what Ari is experienced. So, yeah, primary congenital glaucoma is developed at birth and typically is not related to any other disease. It's usually a primary condition.
And again, the word congenital just meaning that it's present at the time of birth. And Ari's story is really very similar to what a lot of the physicians ophthalmologist see is that it can be diagnosed between the ages of three to six months, but it could be as late as being diagnosed as three years old. So it's definitely something that it's awesome that Ari's family is able to get and connect with the doctors and tree board and get into the specialist down in Lawrence, back to all of us. So can you tell us a little bit about why, generally, glaucoma patients, older glaucoma patients don't, at least in my experience, don't typically get transplants as one of the first resorts and why it would have been necessary for Ari.
Typically with older onset glaucoma, they're able to begin to see the pressure in the eye begin to build and their first route is to go to medication. So they'll begin with drops. And these drops actually slow the production of the fluid that's being built up in the eye. And typically they see great results from those drops in older patients.
And so the patients then can kind of slow that progress down and then they will go to the shunt that they're the stent that Gloria mentioned and that's kind of a one way valve, the one circuit that's in a surgical procedure. And what that does is once the eye reaches a certain pressure amount of fluid, it'll begin to kind of push through this one way valve and then that fluid just gets placed into a tear duct and the recipient of the patient cut it just becomes not as natural tear every so often. And then the final step would be a cornea transplant. And that would be due to the pressure of the back of the eye.
It then begins to shift the multiple parts of the eye and begins to put pressure on the cornea, which is the front part of the eye. So for when you have a baby or a child, does that just happen quicker for them like the transplant part? Yeah, in my experience, that's true. You know, they definitely a child, you know, is precious and you want to try to preserve that site as quickly, but in the appropriate time as well.
So they're they're going to be monitoring that for lack closer. Again, it's more of early onset and they recognize right away where an adult, it's very slow progressing. And so they can kind of treat it a little differently and have a little slower steps to it in an adult or in a pediatric. They're going to look at a little bit more of an urgent kind of an urgent path and try one thing that doesn't work over course in a few months.
They're going to move towards that transplant just again, preserve the child site. So in the case of, you know, even an artery, but a pediatric patient needing a transplant, does that have to be? So does the donor have to match similarly in age or is that pretty irrelevant? Is it more just a quality of the corny itself?
Yeah, it's a great question. It's really certain preference. So some surgeons like to have a close in age donor tissue to do their surgery, but it's not necessary. Like you said, it's more focused on quality of tissue.
So we can we can recover an offer tissue that could be maybe between ages of 30 and 60 and have very high quality tissue and the surgeon can then go ahead and match the size by doing some surgical procedure to match it to the pediatric recipient. Now, Deliria, did you know anything about corneal transplant or donation before Ari and before she developed this congenital disease? I knew absolutely nothing. I just knew plenty of transplant was possible.
I didn't know exactly how or where it came from or anything. So when I talked to, I believe, we saw Dr. Lena, Dr. Lena.
Actually, when she went to Dr. Ellis, he did a procedure. And from there, Dr. Ellis, that he was going to call me into an adult specialist, which is Dr.
Lena. So Ari, I believe, may have been her first child she's had to see and is well for Dr. Shaw. It's been like, she's been my little experiment baby with everyone, everything has been going, like I say, perfectly great.
Because when I talked to Dr. Shaw, he did tell me that it was, this was something that she was going to have to deal with for the rest of her life. He gave me the effect straight up. He wasn't, no, we'll see what we can do and how it works from there.
He said down and he let me know everything before he started. And I was like, okay, so we'll be able to do it. And he was like, yeah, we're going to get our end. And I mean, he got it right in and he did it.
And I was so nervous and scared. I was like, I don't know how long my day was going to be under. I don't know how long I'm going to deal with this. And I believe, we I won't maybe I was going maybe 10 or 15 minutes.
And he came testing me going back to his office and I'm like, she can't be doing this fast. And smiley way. I got back here in my mom's head. Oh, they called always ready.
She can go home there. And I'm like, oh, they just started. I know. Because I thought I walked there.
And her doctor, she was like, oh, yeah, he was going back to his office. He was here in all his office tomorrow. And I'm like, okay, but she came out like a champ. She woke up.
We went home. You know, it was probably a little irritation here with the drops. Like I say, the drops, I can say the drops are every day thing she she has two series of drops she gets. You can actually tell when the pressure is up in her eye because her eye gets kind of big and you can notice the difference.
So we know when that takes place, you have to kind of tell her. She has the rest of her eyes. Children of this generation, everything is electronic, electronic, electronic. So we're trying to monitor her time on her devices, her iPad or TV time, you know, not to strain her eye.
She she does catch some times and it was another thing with her. The patching, no looking wants to walk around looking like a pirate. And it was her thing. She was like, I don't want this on my mom.
I can't I can't see like this. And so it was just it's all, you know, a process, but it's been working. I really can say it's been working because she has she's stringed me in ways that I didn't even be able to be strong. Oh, well, you sound like you're you're a great match for her to help her on this journey.
But we keep talking about her. Can we talk to the star of the show, mom? Sure. Let's see if I can get her merged on.
Hold on one moment. Okay. Okay. Well, when there's Ari.
Hi, Ari. How are you? Good. My name is Lori.
I'm Joey and I'm Sarah. And we were just talking about you, Miss Ari. Hello. Hi.
How old are you? Hi. Hi. Do you go to school?
What's your favorite thing to do at school? You like to sit? You don't like to go running and jumping? I think she's saying paint.
Oh, you paint. You like to paint? Do you like to paint like unicorns or do you paint? I like to say a butterfly.
Oh, those are beautiful. I love butterflies. So, Ari, tell us what do you want to be when you grow up? Oh, she wants to serve and protect.
We love that. Ari, we've been talking about your eyes. How are your eyes today? Good.
Can you see? Do you wear glasses? Yes, ma'am. You do what color are they?
They're black pink. Oh, those are my favorite colors. I love it. I love it.
I just sometimes you have to wear a patch on your eye to take care of it. Yeah. How do you feel about that? Good.
It's to help protect your eye. Yeah. If you have brothers and sisters that you'll take care of, what are their names? And they're, you're, you're, mom says you're a great helper.
Is that true? Are you like a little mama? Yeah. Growing up big.
We appreciate you talking to us, Ari. We're thinking it'd be a great police officer. Okay. All right.
I love it. Thanks for talking to us. She wants to put on a shock yesterday. Yeah.
Well, let me tell you, I five years old, I was definitely shy. So I wouldn't have been able to do what she did. So she was great. So, De'Laria, we love her.
She sounds like a little character. I love it. So what do you see for her in the future? We know there's a lot of care, a lot of maintenance, but you're in it to win it, right?
So what do you see for her future? That future is going to be bright. We want to continue to push her to do things that they may say she may not be able to do. And just let her, let her be a kid and let her grow up.
She's still, I know I'm kind of nervous when she does things because it's always, are you still doing that? Don't we took a, don't need you to teach a place. So, but she's still, she flips. She jokes on the track, I mean, she just, she just does everything that she wants to do.
Don't just want to continue to push her, chair and limit. All in honor of her hero. We love that. Kyle, if you're still on, can you tell us where we can find more information?
Learn more from you guys. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, this is southernibank.org. It's pretty simple.
We have there and then you can also go to the local website, the link based on your website as well. Yeah, southernibank.org. Thanks to you both and thanks to Ari for being on the Gifted Life Podcast and we are excited to watch this Girl Grow Up. The things she will do.
Thank you guys for having us. Thank you. On the Gifted Life, we take a moment for mental health. Yes, we do and I'm very anxious to find out because this is one near and dear to my heart.
The antidote to stress. It's tell us. Stress is near it. You like stress.
Yeah, it's what it is. Yeah. So, feel it. Listen, we're all stressed.
We all experience stress, right? And especially if you're working, you've got families, it's just something that I feel like has become so normal in our lives. Like every day, I feel a little bit of stress at a different point. So, let's talk about some ways that we can relieve that.
Some research based ways we can relieve that. So, well, then I'm not interested. I just want to feel. Give us the science.
Okay, so we have some, we've always kind of known in our society how therapeutic laughter is. You don't have to be a researcher, a scientist, a therapist to know that laughter makes you feel better. But we have some new research that shows how therapeutic it really is, especially for stress. There's even some research, some new research that's suggesting it's as therapeutic as adjunct talk, with therapy or pharmaceutical methods.
So, like anxiety medication, like it could be as therapeutic as these things, which we know are effective. So, a lot of therapists are starting to dabble in laughter therapy, which is just meeting with groups and watching something funny together and laughing together, being in a community and just laughing. And it really helps with stress. I mean, I don't know about y'all, but if I'm stressed out and I go home, I want to watch like the office or something that I know is going to make me laugh and feel good.
And it works. I'm just hanging out with some friends and just good belly laughs about like nothing. Nothing. Yes.
You know those good friends where you can just sit down and talk and you're just laughing. You're reminiscing and you're just giggling. You can't breathe and you're crying because my favorites. Yes.
You just forget everything for a minute. Yeah. The only negative impact is like your face hurting from laughing. Right?
It's funny. So, I had this conversation real brief on the same note. So, last night, my Blakely's been sick. My baby.
She's got a 103 fever. So, that was the day before. So, yesterday when I got home, whether she was a little bit better and I'm playing around tossing her and my wife's like, what are you doing? She's sick and I said, laughter is going to help cure her quicker.
And me. And me. I know from listening to Sarah all these years, I'm happy to laugh. Well, it's true.
And when you feel better when you're laughing, like your body just like it does. It responds. Yeah. So, go laugh.
If you're stressed out, spend time with friends, go watch something funny, a comedian. I mean, there's so much available to us on YouTube, Netflix. Like they have all these comedy specials, which I love. So, go watch something funny, laugh and you'll feel better.
I like that. Tell something funny right now, Joe. Tell us a joke. But your laugh made me laugh.
So, I like it. All right. You have something you want us to cover here, info at the gifted life got work for our question and answer segment today. We're bringing in experts.
Yes, we are. All right. We still have Kyle on from Southern I Bank. So, a question that we get quite often here at LOPA is how long will a corneal transplant last in a recipient?
I know it's different from each recipient. So, if you can touch on that. Yeah, great question. The uniqueness about crony transplants is there's no blood typing to be needed or male to female match or even right to left.
The cornea can be interchanged and the cornea is a vascular. Meaning there's no blood system to vessels to go to it. So, as long as the cells are healthy and the donor tissue and once transplanted and the patients are compliant with just the post-operative all of us and the medications that cornea is going to stay around as long as the patient's alive. That's the beauty of it.
It's just a great piece of tissue in the human body that can survive really well back to those transplants. Great. So, no rejection stuff like you'll see in kidneys and hearts and the solid organs. There's always that small percentage.
Right now the success rate for cornea transplants is in high 90%. So, there's some outliers there in some factors that maybe the cornea didn't get seated right or maybe even manipulated too much. And so, there's the cells at the study level being the guy and there may be possibly where another transplant would have to happen. Gotcha.
Well, if you want to learn more about the amazing gift of site, you can visit our LOPA's resource page. Or, if you have a question for us, go ahead and give us a call at 504-648-3477. In every episode of the Give the Life podcast, we honor a hero. Today's hero is Joseph Francis.
And we learn about Joseph from his family. He was such a character, and you can never replace him. I do hope that the recipients to receive his organs will have that chance to live life once again to its fullest and to the best of their abilities. This was a day that was a very hard day to make the decision, but we know it was the best thing to do and that was to donate his organs.
I want you to know that it makes me feel very good to know that my uncle lives on. His death was a very difficult thing to process on such short notice. My uncle had on his identification card that he wanted to be an organ donor. He was always willing to help someone.
He was a type of man that would always put his needs last to help someone. He could not stand to see anyone be taken advantage of. He knew no strangers. When you met him, it was as though you knew him your whole life.
He always welcomed everyone. He was one of a kind. He loved life. He enjoyed working in the yard, building bonfires, listening to music, planting, and building things.
We were just blessed to know that he lives in others and gave them a chance of life. He loved life to its fullest. And I know he is proud to give this to someone in his place here on Earth. My family hopes that for all the ones who receive his organs that you love so many more blessed years with your family.
If you would like to read more about Joseph, visit lupa.org backslash quilts. And now we pause and say thank you to Joseph for the gift of life. And that is episode 175 of The Gifted Life. Thanks for listening, guys.
Remember, you can always register as an organ eye and tissue donor anytime, or register me.org. And thanks to Ms. Dila Ria, especially for bringing Ari on. How cute was that?
She was amazing. And such a transformation, such a bright kid. I mean, she was so animated and she was such a sweet kid. I love that big old.
Thank you out there. And also special thanks to Kyle Maven for coming on the executive director for Southern Eye Bank to give us shit some light on Lao Coleman, the differences and everything exactly what Ari was dealing with. Yeah, tell your friends how to find us guys the Gifted Life.org. That's the best place to find us and other podcasts.
Yep, you can listen to any of our episodes on our website or Apple Google Spotify, wherever you like to listen to your podcast. If you do listen on Apple, go ahead and give us a five star reading. Review us, subscribe so that others can find our podcast. On social media, our Facebook page, the Gifted Life podcast, you can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Gifted Life Pod.
Thanks for taking the time to listen. We hope that you tell your friends. We hope that you go out and do something you wouldn't normally do to help us make life happen. Have a good one.
This is a production of Loba, our Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency. The Gifted Life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Buudrow and Sarah Blakemore, our executive producer is Kirsten Heis, producer Isha Long Caraway. Intern is Rebecca Rannam and we are recorded, engineered and mixed in our Covington, Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.