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Our Kids - Meet Kaleigh

Kaleigh calls The Hospital for Sick Children her home - it’s really all she knows. Her house, family and friends all reside in Digby, N.S. but two years ago, Kaleigh and her parents moved to Toronto so she could receive life-saving care.

Kaleigh

Kaleigh, Short Bowel Syndrome

Before birth, Halifax doctors diagnosed Kaleigh with gastroschisis, a condition where there is a defect in the abdominal wall that affects the growth of the intestines and can cause severe damage to the bowel. When Kaleigh was born, doctors identified that her bowel was too damaged to absorb the necessary nutrients, a disorder called short bowel syndrome.

For Kaleigh, this meant that she couldn’t absorb the necessary nutrients from her diet and depended on intravenous nutrition, Total Parental Nutrition (TPN), for survival. TPN is bittersweet because although it allows children to live and grow, over time it can lead to liver damage. Kaleigh’s team in Halifax determined that her best hope for survival was to transfer to SickKids – they arrived in Toronto in July, 2005.

SickKids Group for the Improvement of Intestinal Function and Treatment (GIFT) is a program unique to SickKids and is comprised of a group of specialists dedicated to the management of children with intestinal failure. These specialists have been taking care of Kaleigh ever since she arrived in Toronto.

The staff at SickKids is definitely one of a kind. They treat you as if you are family and it is exactly what you need when you have nobody else around you that you know.
- Echo, parent

After several months of receiving the TPN treatment, Kaleigh’s liver became severely damaged - so severe that she required a liver transplant. She underwent a 16-hour transplant operation when a donor liver became available.

Although Kaleigh is doing well, she still faces a number of challenges. She is currently happy at her Toronto home with her parents, but she remains dependant on TPN as her bowel continues to adapt. It is possible that she eventually will need an intestinal transplant. Currently, more than 100 children with intestinal failure have been assessed and treated by the GIFT program since it began in 2003.

HOW CAN YOU HELP? Thousands of children like Kaleigh need your support.