Unfortunately, some people are faced with difficult situations in terms of diseases or conditions that prevent them from enjoying basic activities. Since their lives are so difficult, when they find a way to stay strong and even overcome the imposed limitations, that's a reason to applaud and respect them. It always makes for a very positive story to see someone getting to enjoy what they previously had lacked, or didn't have an opportunity to do.
Mae Koslow-Vogel is a two-year-old girl who was born in February 2016 with an interstitial lungs illness that prevented her from breathing freely unless she used a ventilator. Because of her condition, the little Mae had to spend the majority of her life in a hospital until her parents put her on a lungs transplant list, which panned out in the best way possible. This was after her condition had worsened last August.
Little Mae was staying at the Boston Children's Hospital in Massachusetts due to being born with an uncommon genetic lung illness that denied her the ability to breathe freely on her own. She was forced to use aid in the form of a ventilator. When her condition worsened, her parents Courtney Koslow and Maura Vogel, who are from Somerville, put her on a list for a transplant. Luckily, a match was found in September.
After a match was found, Mae's whole family gathered around her to spend the night together. It was the following day that Mae was scheduled for surgery. The aftermath of it was positive, and at the end of the recovery time, little Mae was finally able to breathe freely on her own. Needless to say, this opened a whole new world for her, which started with her ride home.
Because of her condition, Mae wasn't allowed to exit the hospital doors. When she was finally cleared to do so she was in disbelief, and a tad bit confused. Going back to how her situation came about, initially there weren't any problems during the pregnancy In fact, Courtney carried Mae to full-term, and there were no complications whatsoever. Sadly, Mae showed signs of troubled breathing just an hour after being born, so she was taken to intensive care.
At first, Mae was thought to have a bout of pneumonia, but in four weeks the proper diagnosis came through and the doctors declared that she was suffering from interstitial lung disease also known as 'chILD'. This illness causes a reduction of blood oxygen amounts and messes up the lungs functioning. Mae had a genetic condition, so she didn't have the ABCA3 gene which aids in the creation of a protein that lines the lungs and provides easy breathing.
Maura Vogel recalls: "The diagnosis felt like a bottomless piece of information in a bottomless disease of no predictability to it of when she could go home, she was on life support, thriving in a lot of ways because of it but she was stuck in the hospital. We realized we need this baby home. She's too vibrant living in these hospitals." Fortunately, after the surgery went well, Mae was able to come home, and her development has improved since.
