Medical ‘Miracles on 34th Street’ |
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December 15, 2015, Volume 62, No. 17 |
Penn Medicine (the Perelman School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania Health System) has had a long history of discoveries, such as the Philadelphia Chromosome, the first gene linked to cancer, as well as ‘firsts’ including neonatal intensive care in 1963, the region’s first bilateral hand transplant in 2011 and the recent pediatric double hand transplant. Many medical miracles have taken place, providing exceptional care to patients such as these from the last few years. |
Zion Harvey: World’s First Pediatric Double Hand Transplant
Penn Neurosurgery’s ‘Titanium Woman’
Man Survives Cancer and Heart Transplant, Trains for Ironman World Championships
Zion Harvey: World’s First Pediatric Double Hand Transplant
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Scott Levin with Zion Harvey in late August 2015 on the day he was discharged from the hospital. |
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At the age of two, Zion Harvey of Baltimore, Maryland lost both his hands and his feet to sepsis, a life threatening complication of an infection. Two years later, Zion’s kidneys began to fail and at age four he received a kidney transplant from his mother. Having gone through more in his young life than most do in decades, Zion remained resilient and positive as ever.
Six years after the initial amputation, Zion came to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania anScott Levin with Zion Harvey in late August 2015 on the day he was discharged from the hospital.d the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to become the world’s first pediatric bilateral hand transplant recipient. In July 2015, Zion was scheduled to receive a new pair of hands. His 40-person surgical team was led by L. Scott Levin, chair of the department of orthopaedic surgery at Penn Medicine and director of the hand transplant program at CHOP; N. Scott Adzick, surgeon-in-chief of CHOP, Abraham Shaked, director of the Penn Transplant Institute, and Benjamin Chang, co-director of CHOP’s Hand Transplant Program and associate chief of the division of Plastic Surgery at Penn Medicine. The team spent months planning and preparing for the procedure and more than 11 hours in the operating room on the day of surgery. In the days and weeks following the transplant, Zion was participating in an extensive rehabilitation program and was already learning to hold—and play with—his action figures.
Now, a little over four months later, Zion is back in Baltimore and is continuing his physical and occupational therapy sessions. Zion said in the hospital he was most looking forward to using his hands to hold and hug his baby sister, something he is now home and able to do.
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Penn Neurosurgery’s ‘Titanium Woman’
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Candace Gantt in 2010 at the completion of the
Eagleman Half Ironman competition, five years after her accident. |
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Candace Gantt was becoming an avid athlete in 2005, when on a bike ride through Chester County, Pennsylvania, the young mother of two was struck by a construction truck and thrown from her bike into a telephone pole and fence. Ms. Gantt was airlifted to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) via PennSTAR with extensive and life-threatening injuries, just two weeks after completing her first Half Ironman Triathlon competition. The pressure in Ms. Gantt’s brain spiked and M. Sean Grady, chair of neurosurgery, performed an emergency craniotomy, removing the left side of her skull to relieve the pressure. She spent two weeks in a coma after the surgery; doctors weren’t sure she’d ever walk or talk again. Against all odds, Ms. Gantt woke up and started her long road to recovery, encouraged by her husband and daughters, then four and ten years old. She started taking walks, then runs, a quarter of a mile at a time, two times a week, with her physical therapist at her side.
More than three years after her injury, Ms. Gantt walked back into the unit to visit the Neuro-ICU team for inspiration before her big comeback race. In September 2008, Ms. Gantt competed in her second Half Ironman competition in Bear, Delaware. No longer just an Ironman, she called herself a “titanium woman.” Starting with the 2008 Half Ironman comeback race, Ms. Gantt has raised funds through her races that have been dedicated to the Penn Center for Brain Injury and Repair. “Candace Gantt has won much more than a medal in a Half Iron competition,” said Douglas Smith, director of Penn’s Center for Brain Injury and Repair. “Her comeback story has truly energized our efforts to advance the treatment of traumatic brain injury.”
On April 18, 2011, Ms. Gantt completed the Boston Marathon in an official time of 4:11:10, wearing a shirt that said “Made Possible by Penn Neurosurgery.”
In June, she took to the triathlon course again, completing 70.3 miles of swimming, biking and running in the Eagleman Half Ironman competition in Columbia, Maryland. She is also the engine behind Penn’s “Mind Your Brain” conference. The first annual conference was a rousing success last spring, drawing traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivors and their supporters to connect with services available to TBI survivors and learn about new research, insights and therapies from Penn Medicine clinicians and brain injury thought leaders. This year’s conference is scheduled for March 4, 2016. Ms. Gantt is one of the lucky patients who was able to recover to normal functioning. For many other TBI survivors, life is never the same again.
“This all would not be possible without Penn Medicine,” she has said. Traumatic brain injury is a silent epidemic and the leading cause of death and disability among people under 45. Every 15 seconds, a TBI occurs, resulting in 100,000 deaths and 500,000 disabilities each year.
Ms. Gantt currently runs, bikes and swims with fellow TBI survivors and was a finalist in the 2015 Philadelphia Magazine Health Heroes competition.
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Man Survives Cancer and Heart Transplant, Trains for Ironman World Championships
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Derek Fitzgerald after completing the Ironman Lake Placid. |
In 2003, Derek Fitzgerald of Harleysville, Pennsylvania was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Chemotherapy saved his life, but severely damaged his heart, leaving him in need of a heart transplant at just 35 years old. His transplant, which he received in January 2011, and his rehabilitation were both performed at Penn Medicine. His cardiac care was provided by Mariell Jessup, a professor of medicine, associate chief of Clinical Affairs in the division of Cardiovascular Medicine, and medical director of the Penn Medicine Heart and Vascular Center.
Prior to his transplant, Mr. Fitzgerald, a tech company owner, was inactive and out of shape. But, through cardiac rehabilitation, he was able to run in his first 5K eight months after his transplant and hasn’t looked back.
He has now competed in over 70 endurance events and in July of 2013, he became the first cancer surviving, heart transplant recipient to complete the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run of the Ironman triathlon.
In the summer of 2015, Mr. Fitzgerald completed a coast-to-coast bike ride—from Santa Monica, California to Avalon, New Jersey—to raise funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, followed by yet another an Ironman in August. On October 10, he participated in the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. He truly is a miracle patient and a survivor. |
Related: Meanwhile, at Penn’s New Bolton Center
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