Akvilė Juškauskaitė has been living with chronic kidney disease since she was eight months old, and she started dialysis when she was just ten. She needed to go for dialysis every other day and was attached to a large machine for about four hours. During the day, she could only drink one to two glasses of fluids.
“It felt like you get used to this routine, but the poor well-being during dialysis and daily restrictions were really exhausting. I often felt nauseous, very weak, and had no energy. It was hard to endure thirst between sessions and not be able to eat my favorite strawberries and chocolate or drink juices. The hardest part was seeing my peers eating things I couldn’t have. Plus, the catheter in my chest was a big inconvenience that I had to learn to live with.”
Akvilė’s childhood was very different from that of typical children her age: “They started my dialysis in the summer, and those days were marked off the calendar. I rarely met with friends due to my poor health, even though it was vacation time. When September came, I started fourth grade but only attended school for eight days and returned to studies only after my transplant, starting in fifth grade.”
Now Akvilė is a student who has been living with a transplanted kidney for eleven years. She is actively involved in “Gyvastis” activities, participating in educational talks and events promoting organ donation, sharing her story of illness and recovery: “Kidney transplantation fundamentally changes life – it’s an invaluable gift from the donor’s family. I feel and understand this deeply, which is why I encourage everyone to think about organ donation, so that neither children nor adults have to suffer from diseases that a transplanted organ can heal.”
Alantas Liginskas was born with a serious heart condition diagnosed while still in his mother’s womb. After three surgeries that only slightly improved his condition, the family’s only hope was a heart transplant, without which the boy was given about six months to live. At that time, Alantas was only three months old. Finding a donor for such a small child is incredibly challenging.
A miracle happened when a donor heart was found in Latvia. A military helicopter transported the organ to Santariškės Clinics. The four-kilogram infant successfully received the transplant. Alantas’s family felt immense relief. “When we heard about the successful operation, we just cried tears of joy,” shares his father Arūnas.
Alantas’s story is remarkable: he became the first person in Lithuania’s transplant history to receive a heart from a neighboring country and is the youngest person to ever have a heart transplant in the Baltic states.
Now, more than ten years after the transplant, Alantas is an active and curious boy. “He really enjoys math and biology. It seems he knows more about the cardiovascular system than his peers,” laughs his mother Ingrida.
Due to immunosuppressive medications, Alantas studies at home to avoid infections. A teacher visits their home, or he participates in classes remotely. Despite this, he is an active child who loves to play and run outside, just like his peers.