Organ Transplant Patient Stories
May 31, 2024
Former Razorback, Green Bay Packer Credits God and UAMS for Keeping Him Alive
Nothing seems to slow Leotis Harris down or take the smile off his face. As a teenager, he was a star football player at Hall High School in Little Rock. From there, he became the first Black All-American Arkansas Razorback football player. Then, after being drafted in 1978 into the National Football League, he spent…
December 8, 2023
New Liver Brings New Outlook on Life
In the early 2000s, after a series of scans and tests, doctors told Ed Allis that he had a fatty liver. In the following years, as he approached retirement from AT&T as a government lobbyist, he started retaining fluid, particularly in his abdomen.
November 19, 2021
Woman Undergoes Successful Liver Transplant at UAMS During Pandemic
Seven years ago, Tara Farris of Little Rock went to a dermatologist to try to figure out why she was itching so much. But the cause of the uncomfortable sensations wasn’t readily apparent. Finally, after a battery of tests and biopsies, “they found out my liver was way out of whack,” she said. The diagnosis:…
December 17, 2018
In 2018, Fort Smith Man Received UAMS’ 2018th transplant.
On Nov. 29, 2018, John Drossopolus’ rode his mountain bike for the first time in more than five months. While his strength was not 100 percent, the Fort Smith man feels he is almost there. Drossopolus’ personal mantra is three-pronged and it starts with having a positive attitude. He was living with chronic kidney disease…
August 17, 2015
Liver Transplant Program Has Near Perfect Results
Lynne Reynolds’ journey to UAMS started with a tumble down 19 stair steps. “I blacked out,” Reynolds said of that September 2007 mishap, which resulted in an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital, an eventual diagnosis of nonalcoholic liver cirrhosis and a liver transplant. Mike Scott’s path to a UAMS liver transplant began on Christmas…
August 10, 2015
Surprise Call Brings New Kidney for Patient With Rare Blood Type
You might say life handed Susan Freyaldenhoven a few lemons, and although she was making lemonade, it was becoming a struggle. The 45-year-old Conway middle school principal and her nephrologist had been watching her kidneys deteriorate for 20 years as she went about her career and became the mother of three boys. But over time,…
June 10, 2015
Road to Recovery
If there’s one thing Jeff Snodgres can do, it’s defy the odds. During a routine physical exam at age 10, Jeff, a self-proclaimed “military brat,” was found to have protein in his urine. Because he lacked any other symptoms, doctors were unable to determine the exact cause. However, they suspected Alport Syndrome, a hereditary kidney…
May 17, 2014
UAMS Helps College Student Donate Kidney to Mena Man
Twenty-one-year-old Alissa Pitcher of Grand Rapids, Mich., was moved last spring by a Mena, Arkansas, mother’s plea on behalf of her son. The request for prayers came via e-mail from an old family friend, Tammy Hamelink, whose 23-year-old son, Kryn, was in desperate need of a kidney transplant. As Alissa’s mother read Tammy’s e-mail aloud,…