Heart and Lung Transplant for Roza Saad

Roza was diagnosed with Severe Pulmonary Hypertension (PH) in March 2019. Since then she’s been having routine heart catheterizations to check the pressure in her lungs. She’s also been on many medications and the Remodulin Pump.

The most recent cath was on 8/28 and it showed that the pressure increased a lot. So the doctors recommended a lung biopsy to check for a possible cause of PH. She had the biopsy on 9/3 and after it, her lungs failed and her heart stopped for 15 minutes. Then they put her on ECMO device which has been replacing the function of her heart and lungs. The results of the biopsy led to the same diagnosis, PH. Then on 9/5 she started having bleeding in her lungs and so they put a tube to drain out as much of the blood as possible. Then the doctors said she needs a heart lung transplant which is not available at Loma Linda so they transferred her to Stanford Children’s Hospital. When she arrived at Stanford her case became a little more complicated as the bleeding increased a lot. It was draining out of 3 tubes and out of her nose. So on 9/11 they did another surgery which took 9 hours to drain out the blood.

Now she’s still on ECMO and we’re waiting and hoping that her heart and lungs would start functioning again so they can take her off the ECMO and wait for the transplant. The bleeding has decreased a little bit, but her blood pressure is not stable. She can’t have a transplant when she’s this sick. She has to be off the ECMO so her body can recover and be ready for the surgery.

These funds will help to ease the financial burden the family is enduring. Parents are staying with Roza at Stanford in Palo Alto and Ranya and Elias are at home with family.