Cruel strangers compared a baby whose skin turned yellow due to liver problems to “Maggie Simpson.”
Baby Camiyah, who was born in desperate need of a liver transplant, was rushed to the hospital when she was just three weeks old when her mother discovered blood in her feces.
After running tests on the newborn’s liver, the doctors discovered the true reason behind it.
At five-weeks-old Camiyah Burton was diagnosed with biliary atresia — which causes a blockage in the tubes that carry bile from the liver to the gallbladder. Doctors swiftly operated on the child and believed they had fully removed the blockage.
The respite was short-lived, however.
Seven months after the procedure, the toddler began turning yellow and her condition deteriorated.
“The symptoms were getting worse. She was getting more and more yellow by the day and was in and out of hospital every other week with an infection,” said the child’s mother Abbie McClean, 23.
“About seven months later they agreed that her surgery hadn’t worked and her only chance of survival was a liver transplant.”
“We were actually told that if she didn’t get a transplant, she wouldn’t live past the age of two, added McClean. “It was actually terrifying and there were loads of thoughts going through my head.”
McClean had to contend with more than health woes for her daughter, she had to deal with a kind of societal sickness. Several people started trolling her and her daughter by calling the baby “Maggie Simpson” in reference to the youngest character in the hit TV show “The Simpsons.”
“We did actually have a few people, quite horrible people, who described her as ‘a Simpson’. That’s how yellow she was,” recalled McClean.
“Most of the comments were nice but there would be the odd comment where someone would say ‘oh is that Maggie Simpson?’”
McClean said that she wasn’t bothered by the comments because she knew the real reason why her daughter was yellow.
“To be honest, the comments don’t bother me because I just think that they’re just very uneducated for one, and two, I’m so proud of her that nothing like that could ever change how I feel about it all anyway,” stated McClean.
“That comment doesn’t bother me at all because she was yellow – she was yellow because she was poorly, but she was that yellow.”
About a year after the failed surgery, things reached a breaking point.
“At 11 months, it just got worse and worse – in the end before the transplant she got that yellow she was actually almost green in color,” said McClean. “We got a lot of stares. The whites of her eyes were really yellow and her skin was piercing yellow.”
“Camiyah had grown a large tummy from the build-up of fluids because of the liver disease and the surgeon’s words were ‘we’re going to make that tummy flat today’ and was just smiling,” continued McClean. “It was just completely different to the last two calls that we had.”
In December of last year, Burton finally had her liver transplant and has been recovering nicely — with a few hiccups — according to her mother.
“Her surgery went really well. Her recovery from the transplant wasn’t the easiest – there were a few things along the way,” McClean said.
“Since being home from the transplant, she actually seemed very well to how she was before – she was coming on leaps and bounds and learned to walk and crawl and do everything she couldn’t do before.”
“And it’s just really nice to be able to see her live a life outside of the hospital.”
McClean said that the organ came from a woman who died in a car crash. Camiyah received half of her liver while the other half of the liver managed to save another person’s life.
Since the operation, Burton’s skin color has returned to normal and her liver problems have cleared up.
“She’s been the best she’s ever been in her whole life, to be honest. She’s now thriving,” said McClean. “It’s great to see her like that, it’s like she’s finally living now – she’s running around all the time and has developed such an amazing character.”
“She made me feel more positive and that we were going to get through it, at that point then it was like ‘ok, we can’t change what’s happening but we can control how we respond to it almost’,” McClean added.
Both mother and daughter have become advocates for organ donation since the procedure.
“We go by the phrase, if you would take an organ for you or your loved one you should be willing to donate yours when you no longer need them,” McClean said.
“I think that organ donation is amazing and it really does change lives for the better.”