A Louisiana woman has detailed how doctors told her she had less than a day to live after suffering stomach pain.
Danielle Perea, then 24, was diagnosed more than five years ago and this week described how she is still alive in an interview with CBS News.
She recalled how she suffered a blood clot in one of the vessels that carries blood from the small intestine, leading her to vomit blood and go to the emergency room as her symptoms intensified.
“They just saw that everything was completely black, necrotic, dead,” Perea told the station. ‘They (told my boyfriend) ‘There is no way for her to survive this, you need to call her parents.’
Recalling how they were both told he “probably had 24 hours to live,” he went on to reveal how he beat the odds: He spent a year and a half living on nutrition administered intravenously before receiving a successful transplant.
Danielle Perea was told she was hours from death about five years ago, after showing up at a hospital with stomach pains. The cause was her small intestine, riddled with dead tissue. She needed a transplant and she was able to live until she was able to get one.
On Saturday, the medical technologist described how she is still alive in an interview with CBS News.
“They just told me, ‘You have to go to the clinic right away.’ It wasn’t an option,” Perea recalled of how in June 2020 he received the call he had been waiting for.
The subsequent surgery lasted 10 hours, during which doctors worked tirelessly to address his mesenteric ischemia.
Years earlier, surgeons had tried unsuccessfully to save his small intestine, but there were too many dead cells, also known as necrotic tissue; in other words,
“They just saw that everything was completely black, necrotic, dead,” Perea told the publication just over 200 days after marrying Luis Perea.
‘They (told Luis) ‘There is no way for her to survive this, they have to call her parents.’ Bring anyone who needs to be here, because she probably has 24 hours to live,’ she recalled.
Doctors would then move her to palliative care, passing the days until her seemingly inevitable death.
But there he exceeded doctors’ expectations, maintaining “strong vital signs” for more than a week.
At that point, she, Luis and her mother searched for some kind of savior and found one in the Cleveland Clinic’s intestinal transplant program.
She recalled how she had suffered a blood clot in one of the vessels that carries blood from the small intestine, which left her vomiting blood and in the emergency room as her symptoms intensified.
Doctors would then transfer her to palliative care, where she spent the days until her seemingly inevitable death. But there she exceeded doctors’ expectations and maintained “strong vital values” for more than a week.
Program director Dr. Kareem Abu-Elmagd later agreed to take on the task of replacing Perea’s small intestine, ushering in the next stage of the then-graduate student’s grueling road to recovery: waiting for a compatible donor to be found.
At that point, she was transferred to a hospital in Ohio, where her small intestine was almost completely resected.
However, her condition soon stabilized and, after several subsequent procedures, she was ready to be added to the program’s transplant list in spring 2019.
He spent the next year living on nutrients pumped into him intravenously, because without intestines, he could not eat normally.
The length of this stage forced her to undergo another surgery, this time to repair damage caused to her trachea by a breathing tube before she could receive the transplant.
That would increase the amount of time she had to wait, and the pandemic would further complicate the process by forcing her to pass on an organ that would have been deemed compatible in April 2020, she said.
Two months later, he received a call informing him that another organ was available, after which he underwent a 10-hour surgery.
Despite such transplants being notoriously difficult and rare, the operation was a success, she told CBS, before revealing how she was subsequently confined to a hospital room on and off for several months after suffering frequent fevers.
At that time, she, Luis and their mother searched for a savior of sorts and found one in the Cleveland Clinic’s intestinal transplant program. They agreed to take on the task of replacing Perea’s small intestine, ushering in the next stage of the then-graduate student’s grueling road to recovery: waiting for a compatible donor.
He spent the next year living off nutrients pumped into him intravenously, because without intestines he couldn’t eat normally. Two months later, he received a call informing him that another organ was available, after which he underwent the 10-hour surgery.
Then, in January 2021, he underwent another procedure, this time to repair the abdominal wall and reverse an incision made during surgery.
She was later given a clean bill of health, before living out her life with her beloved for the next four years.
They were to be married in Lafayette, Perea’s hometown, in November of last year.
During that time, she was also able to finish her degree as a clinical laboratory science major at the University of West Florida, before accepting a job as a medical technologist at Ascension Sacred Heart in Pensacola.
He added to CBS that despite now living relatively normally, he has to take “about 40 pills a day” to keep his condition under control.
She also mentioned the possibility that she may still need a kidney transplant in the future, due to the amount of anti-rejection drugs she has been forced to take that inherently damage the organ.
Still, she said everything has been “super normal” so far and she hopes to live a long, healthy life.
“I don’t have any restrictions. My incisions healed well,” Perea said, recalling that she had gotten married in November. “We bought a house,” she revealed. “Everything is going well.”
She continued her studies and finished her degree as a clinical laboratory science student at the University of West Florida, before accepting a job as a medical technologist at Ascension Sacred Heart in Pensacola.
She married the boyfriend who was by her side throughout the process in November, after receiving a clean bill of health following the successful transplant.
As for parting words from the Cleveland Clinic doctors, he said, “They say, ‘Just keep living your life.’ There’s nothing stopping you.”
They were responsible for 18 of the 95 intestinal transplants performed in the United States last year, and the operation had a low success rate because it is a “difficult” organ to control and has the highest rejection rate of any type of organ transplant.
However, Pera overcame the odds and offered hope to anyone facing a similar undertaking.
