She tells everyone that she has the same liver as her mother and is proud of that scar that crosses her abdomen: the same as that of whoever gave her birth. Two years have passed since the surgery that gave little Greta a new life: after receiving a piece of liver given to her by her mother, Barbara Pittore, an otolaryngologist at the Santissima Trinità hospital in Cagliari, the little girl - who was suffering from atresia biliary disease, a disease that leads to cirrhosis of the liver - he is now 5 years old and leading a normal life.
The new life
Greta loves going to the pool and playing with her older sister Gaia, she goes to nursery school and will go to first grade in September: a small miracle that happened thanks to that delicate operation that kept her mother under the knife for nine hours and her for twelve.
Barbara Pittore is a mother, but she is also a woman of science: she has always known that the little girl would have to fight to stay in the world, but she has never lost hope of a normal life for her little girl: «Greta is very better, twenty days after the transplant that piece of liver weighing 230 grams has doubled, now the organ has the size of that of a little girl of her age. She continues to take immunosuppressant drugs, but her health is good and she can eat almost anything: she can't run or climb, but she loves going to the pool. His spleen is slightly larger than normal, but compared to the period before the surgery, the situation has improved considerably: his weight has also changed, before the surgery he weighed just 10 kilos, the following year almost double».
In the hospital
Greta has attended hospital environments since she was born, she underwent numerous visits, underwent a first surgery when she was very small and then that operation carried out by the doctors of the Le Molette hospital in Turin which changed her life:
despite her age, the little girl knows her story. «After the operation we followed a course with a psychologist – explains the mother -, they always suggested us never to hide anything from her, which is why Greta has no problem talking about her health. She says she has a scar like mine, and that she has her mother's liver: she's a very smart little girl, every time she enters the hospital without making a fuss, she moves as if it were her own home. Greta undergoes a series of tests every three months: twice a year we return to Turin where her new life has begun for more accurate checks.
Obviously, she is always at risk of rejection, but the hepatologist has always told us to let her lead a normal life, and to overcome our fears".
The example
Talking about one's own experience to help those who find themselves facing challenges that may seem insurmountable: Barbara Pittore has decided to tell Greta's story to support all those families who live similar experiences: «Never lose hope, not even in the face of the most difficult hard, I wanted to talk about the long path of rebirth undertaken by my daughter also to raise awareness of organ donation, if I hadn't been suitable Greta would not have survived ».
Ivan Morgana
