Miracle Boy Gets One-Impossible Kidney Transplant

A 9-year-old boy whose tiny body was ravaged by swine flu during the 2009 outbreak is recovering from a much-needed but once-impossible kidney transplant.

Robert "Boo" Maddox had the transplant July 30 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., nearly four years after contracting the H1N1 virus that killed an estimated 1,282 U.S. children.

The seven-hour surgery supplemented Boo's failing kidneys with a healthy kidney from his mom, Renee, who stayed by her son's hospital bedside for 501 days in the peak of the pandemic.

"We've had nowhere to turn but look up," said Boo's dad, Robert Maddox IV, crediting the family's faith in God for Boo's survival. "People say every day, 'I don't know how y'all do this.' But the beauty is we don't do it alone."

Boo's battle with swine flu has been fraught with complications. The virus, which sickened an estimated 60 million Americans, wreaked havoc on the young boy's lungs, heart, pancreas, spleen and kidneys, which could no longer filter his blood.
To simplify thrice-weekly dialysis treatments, Boo had surgery to fuse a vein and artery in his arm – a procedure known as an arteriovenous fistula. But the engorged vessel caused a dangerous blood pressure spike in Boo's lungs, making a lifesaving kidney transplant out of reach.
"He was told by many doctors that he was not a candidate for a transplant," said Dr. Mikel Prieto, the Mayo surgeon whose bold plan to reverse the fistula made the surgery possible. "I talked to his dad and said, 'I think maybe we can fix this.'"
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