Woman who woke up with stomach pains was given just hours to live after horrifying discovery… before miracle last-minute intervention saved her life

June 30, 2024

A Louisiana lady has detailed how medical doctors instructed her she had lower than a day to dwell after struggling a stomachache.

Danielle Perea, 24, was met with the prognosis greater than 5 years in the past, and this week described how she continues to be alive in an interview with CBS News.

She recalled how she had suffered a blood clot in one of many vessels that carries blood from the small intestines, leaving her vomiting blood and in an emergency room as her signs intensified.

‘They only noticed that every little thing was utterly black, necrotic, lifeless,’ Perea instructed the station. ‘They (instructed my boyfriend), “There is no method she’s going to outlive this, you want to name her dad and mom.”‘

Recalling how they have been each instructed that she ‘in all probability has 24 hours to dwell,’ she went on to disclose how she beat the percentages – spending a 12 months and half dwelling on IV -administered diet earlier than receiving a profitable transplant.

Danielle Perea was instructed she was hours away from loss of life about 5 years in the past, after exhibiting as much as a hospital with abdomen pains. The supply was her small intestines, suffering from lifeless tissue. A transplant was vital, and he or she was in a position to dwell till she was in a position to safe one

On Saturday, the medical technologist described how she continues to be alive in an interview with CBS Information

‘They have been identical to, “That you must get to the clinic immediately.” It wasn’t an possibility,’ Perea recalled of how in June 2020, she bought the decision she had been ready for.

The following surgical procedure took 10 hours, throughout which medical doctors labored relentlessly to deal with her mesenteric ischemia.

Surgeons years earlier than had unsuccessfully tried to avoid wasting her small intestines, however have been too many lifeless cells – often known as necrotic tissue – in different phrases,

‘They only noticed that every little thing was utterly black, necrotic, lifeless,’ Perea instructed the publication a little bit greater than 200 days after tying the knot together with her husband, Luis.

‘They (instructed Luis), “There is no method she’s going to outlive this, you want to name her dad and mom. Get anybody right here who must be right here, as a result of she in all probability has 24 hours to dwell,”‘ she recalled.

Docs would then switch her to hospice care, ticking by the times till her seemingly inevitable demise.

However there, she surpassed physicians’ expectations, sustaining ‘robust vitals’ for greater than every week.

At this level, she, Luis, and her mom appeared for some form of savior, and located one within the Cleveland Clinic’s intestinal transplant program.

She recalled how she had suffered a blood clot in one of many vessels that carries blood from the small intestines, leaving her vomiting blood and in an emergency room as her signs intensified

Docs would then switch her to hospice care, ticking by the times till her seemingly inevitable demise. However there, she surpassed physicians’ expectations, sustaining ‘robust vitals’ for greater than every week

The pinnacle of this system, Dr. Kareem Abu-Elmagd, afterward agreed to tackle the duty of changing Perea’s small gut, giving option to the subsequent stage of the then-grad scholar’s grueling highway to restoration – ready for an appropriate match.

At that time, she was relocated to he hospital in Ohio, with the small bowel nearly completely resected.

Her situation, nevertheless, quickly stabilized, and following a number of subsequent procedures, she was able to be added to this system’s transplant checklist within the spring of 2019.

She spent the subsequent 12 months dwelling off of vitamins pumped intravenously, as a result of the truth that with out intestines, she could not eat usually.

The length of this stage noticed her compelled to endure one more surgical procedure – this one repairing the injury completed to her trachea from a respiration tube earlier than she may obtain the transplant.

This is able to add to the period of time she needed to wait, with the pandemic additional complicating the method by forcing her to cross on an organ that might have been deemed a match in April 2020, she stated.

Two months later, she obtained a name that one other organ had develop into availiable, after which she underwent the 10-hour surgical procedure.

Regardless of such transplants being notoriously troublesome and uncommon, the operation was a hit, she instructed CBS – earlier than revealing how afterwards she was nonetheless confined to a hospital room intermittently for a number of months, after struggling frequent fevers.

At this level, she, Luis, and her mom appeared for some form of savior, and located one within the Cleveland Clinic’s intestinal transplant program. They agreed to tackle the duty of changing Perea’s small gut, giving option to the subsequent stage of the then-grad scholar’s grueling highway to restoration – ready for an appropriate match

She spent the subsequent 12 months dwelling off of vitamins pumped intravenously, as a result of the truth that with out intestines, she could not eat usually. Two months later, she obtained a name that one other organ had develop into availiable, after which she underwent the 10-hour surgical procedure

Then, in January of 2021, she underwent one more process – this one to restore her stomach wall and reverse an incision made throughout the surgical procedure.

Afterwards, she was given a full invoice of well being, earlier than dwelling out her life together with her beloved for the subsequent 4 years.

In November of final 12 months, they’d wed in Lafayette, Perea’s hometown.

Throughout that span, she was additionally in a position to end her diploma as a medical lab science scholar on the College of West Florida, earlier than taking a job as a medical technologist at Pensacola’s Ascension Sacred Coronary heart.

She added to CBS how regardless of now dwelling comparatively usually, she has to take ‘about 40 drugs a day’ to maintain her situation in verify.

She additionally aired the chance she nonetheless would possibly want a kidney transplant sooner or later, because of the quantity of anti-rejection medicines she has been compelled to take that inherently injury the organ.

Nonetheless, she stated that every little thing has been “tremendous regular” up to now, and is wanting ahead to dwelling an extended, wholesome life.

‘I haven’t got any restrictions. My incisions healed nicely,’ Perea stated, citing how she had married in November. ‘We purchased a home,’ she additional revealed. ‘It is simply all going nicely.”

She went on to complete her diploma as a medical lab science scholar on the College of West Florida, earlier than taking a job as a medical technologist at Pensacola’s Ascension Sacred Coronary heart

She wed the boyfriend who stayed by her facet via all of it in November, after receiving a full invoice of well being after the profitable transplant

As for the parting phrases from the medical doctors on the Cleveland Clinic, she stated, ‘They’re like, “Simply hold dwelling your life. There’s nothing stopping you.”‘

They have been chargeable for 18 of the US’ 95 intestinal transplants final 12 months, with the operation having a low success charge as a result of being “troublesome” organ to observe, and having the very best rejection charge of any form of organ transplant.

Pera, nevertheless, beat the percentages, providing hope to any confronted with an identical enterprise.