SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD Gwen Tan never stopped giving, even after she died.
The teenager, who often volunteered to tutor under privileged kids, gave eight patients a new lease of life when her parents - who held the belief that their daughter would have wanted to help others - donated five of her organs after she was declared brain dead, the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) reported in its May/June newsletter, Outram Now.
The recipients - five men, two women and a girl - come from diverse backgrounds. The oldest is 61 and the youngest, three. The two men who recieved her kidneys each had waited for over seven years, while the child - born with a rare life-threatening condition - waited for over a year. In all, Gwen's heart, liver, kidneys, lungs and corneas were donated.
Gwen, a triple-science student of a top school, collapsed at a train station one morning last December. 'I tried to massage her head her head but she stopped me,' said her mum who was with Gwen then. Other than mild childhood asthma and occasional nosebleeds due to a thin nose membrane, Gwen seemed a healthy girl, her mother was quoted as saying. Their names were changed at the family's request for privacy, said the newsletter .
Mrs Tan decided to take her to a clinic where she was given an injection and medicine for giddiness and vomiting. But by the time they left the clinic, Gwen's vision had blurred. Late that night, she vomitted again and her parents rushed her to hospital.
A CT scan showed a massive blood clot in the left lower back of her head and doctors diagnosed her to be suffering from Cerebral Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM) - a congenital disorder that interrupts blood flow in the brain due to abnormal connections between arteries and the veins.
Gwen was transferred to an intensive care unit around 1am and was induced into a coma to minimise brain activities. Her condition stablised the next morning but deteriorated quickly overnight when the pressure in her skull spiked. An emergency procedure was done to relieve pressure on her brain. By the next afternoon, neurosurgeons told Mrs Tan Gwen's left brain - the part that controls speech and vision - was damaged.
"According to him, she was like a walking time bomb. As the high-pressure blood acts at the top of the vein, the thin wall of the vein is being stretched. It was only a matter of time before it burst," said Mrs Tan. Another consultant told her Gwen "would be gone" the moment she was taken off the life support machine.
On Christmas night, doctors told the Tans Gwen's hormones had become inbalanced - a sign the brain had lost its function. The following night, she was certified brain dead.
--ST