Six-Year-Old Girl Finds Kidney Donor Match How?

WOWT NEWS

A six-year-old girl has beaten the odds by having not one, but two kidney transplants.

Mallory Bultsma has suffered from severe kidney damage, even before she was born.

“We knew pretty much in utero that she was probably going to need a kidney transplant at some point,” says Kim Bultsma, Mallory’s mother.

The kidney damage was caused by bilateral grade five bladder reflux. Doctors told the Bultsmas’ that their daughter would need a kidney transplant as soon as she weighted 22 lbs, the size needed to receive an adult sized kidney.

The couple started Mallory on dialysis in preparation for her first transplant in 2008 and a month after her second birthday, she received a kidney transplant.

But this spring, the family realized that the kidney was failing.

“It was really a tough pill to swallow. If you would have said she was going to need another kidney I would have been like what are you kidding me?”

Once the Bultsmas’ realized their daughter would need another kidney transplant, the search began for a donor. They needed someone who matched Mallory's O positive blood type.

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