Alexa Kersting was a young fourteen-year-old girl from West Fargo waiting for a life-changing lung transplant. Kersting was diagnosed with lung disease by the age of seven, and developed pulmonary hypertension-- high blood pressure that affects the arteries in the lungs and the right side of the heart-- by the age of twelve (“Pulmonary Hypertension”). Once she was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, she was placed on the transplant waiting list, and for the upcoming months Alexa was on that list, she was on oxygen twenty-four hours a day. Unfortunately, she could never do any of the things other “normal” children could do due to her illnesses and treatments, meaning her hobbies had to be less strenuous, such as piano and art. Thankfully, …show more content…
Many families cannot thank the donor’s families enough, just like Khalieghya and her family cannot. Khalieghya was diagnosed with biliary artesia as an infant-- blockage in the tubes that carry bile from the liver to the gallbladder. She had many surgeries, but they were unsuccessful. Doctors informed her family that the only way that she would survive was if she received a liver transplant; with that being said, she was finally placed on the national transplant waiting list. Khalieghya’s family received word when she was five months old that the doctors had found a liver match because another child passed and the family members were generous enough to donate the child’s organs. Without this life saving transplant, Khalieghya would be dead; although, thanks to another grieving family, she is just like every other child. Instead of being locked away in a hospital her whole life, now she can play, run, jump, go anywhere she wants, and only has to take a small dose of anti-rejection medication twice a day (“A Chance to Be Just Like Other Children”). A little girl’s life was saved due to an inevitable accident, no single person can see the future; therefore, everybody should be prepared to give one last gift to another if their life is cut