5-Year-Old’s Incredible Recovery After Doctors Told Family ‘There Was No Hope’
Five years after physicians told Nolan Sensintaffar’s parents that the infant had a rare genetic disorder and “there was no hope,” his mother says the boy has undergone a quadruple transplant and she’s thrilled to report that he’s making a remarkable recovery.
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“We are doing excellent,” Heather Sensintaffar told KETV this weekend after Nolan got “a new tummy,” as he describes it, on Dec. 4 thanks to the transplant of a small bowel, large bowel, liver, and pancreas. “I always tell parents you have to follow your heart. You know your child. Don’t give up until you know.”
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Photo: Facebook/Nolan Sensintaffar’s Updates
Everything “was fine,” after all, the Tulsa, Okla., mom explained on a CaringBridge site set up for Nolan, “until [Nolan] was about 6 weeks old and began to have trouble eating. By January, he had stopped eating all together.” The family — which includes father Cody and Nolan’s brothers, Isaac and Griffin — tried different formulas after doctors said they believed Nolan was allergic to the one he was using, but nothing changed. A specialist in Dallas didn’t help either, nor did geneticists sought out in St. Louis, where the family learned that Nolan had a rare genetic disorder.
Photo: KETV
“There they told us …‘Take him home,’” Heather told KETV. “They refused to do anything else. [They said,] ‘Take him home and enjoy him while you can.’” Refusing to accept that they were powerless, Heather and her husband took Nolan to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, which another specialist had recommended. “When we showed up, we met Dr. [David] Mercer and he took a look at Nolan,” she said. “He had a plan of action immediately.”
Photo: Facebook/Nolan Sensintaffar’s Updates
That plan helped, but a transplant was still the fix the boy needed. And when they finally got the call that the organs were available, Heather wrote, “Within a few hours we gathered our thoughts, said MANY prayers, had lots of visits to say goodbye, and we were off!”
Post-transplant, Nolan is “doing excellent,” his mom told KETV. “Everything is working great, absorbing, organs are working.” Nolan’s doctor, in fact, hopes that the boy will be able to leave the hospital next week.
Photo: KETV
“He is such a trooper,” the proud mom declared on Facebook. She acknowledges that Nolan’s recovery has been a roller coaster complete with setbacks and issues, but she nevertheless calls him “a miracle in the making.”
(Top photo: Facebook/Nolan Sensintaffar’s Updates)
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