By Norma Dittman
Fulda Free Press staff writer
Ten year old Addysen Hendel has a few places on her bucket list that she would like to visit. She didn’t know exactly what would be top on her list until her pediatric pulmonologist, Dr. Wilfredo Veloira, Avera Sioux Falls, and the Child Life Specialists, contacted Make-A-Wish® Minnesota on Addysen’s behalf.
Addysen has Kartagener’s syndrome, which brings her respiratory distress often throughout each year. Kartagener’s syndrome is a rare hereditary disease. It is caused by a mutation that can occur on many different genes. Symptoms of the disease are frequent respiratory infections, sinus infections, ear infections, and chronic nasal congestion.
Those people who have Kartagener’s syndrome have primary ciliary dyskinesia, meaning that the cilia do not move properly to help prevent infections.
Those affected also have situs inversus which is where vital organs develop on the opposite side of the body, forming a mirror image of the normal positioning.
While it is possible for a person to have primary ciliary dyskinesia without situs inversus, when a person has both, it is then known as Kartagener’s syndrome.
In Addysen’s case, neither parent has Kartagener’s syndrome, but both are carriers.
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