Finding a Best Friend: Arkansas Children’s Patients Bond Over Short Bowel Syndrome

Ask 9-year-old Emerson Sikes what it means to have a friend like Yazmine Sadler, and he's quick to say, "She knows everything I say. I love talking. It just makes me feel good."  

The 9-year-old best friends are bonded in a special way, beyond their love of playing online video games, calling each other on their iPads and going roller skating.  

They are connected by their shared experience of living with pediatric short bowel syndrome (SBS), a condition where a large portion of the small intestines is missing or damaged from disease or surgery, preventing the body from properly absorbing nutrients from food. According to the National Institutes of Health, SBS is a rare disease, affecting 25 to 46 children per 100,000 newborns in the United States.  

The two have been patients of Arkansas Children’s their whole lives.  

Born a little over a week apart, they stayed in the Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH) Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in Little Rock. Today, they are treated by gastroenterology experts at ACH. 

Some symptoms of SBS include diarrhea, dehydration, fatigue and poor growth. Because patients with this condition have shortened intestines, they cannot absorb enough nutrients by mouth. To help them receive the needed nutrients, Emerson and Yazmine have G-tubes (inserted into the stomach for nutrients, fluids and medication). Yazmine also has a central line (a catheter in a vein near the heart to deliver nutrients directly to the bloodstream). Emerson had a central line for seven years. 

They got to know each other while attending the same special needs daycare.  

“She had the same condition as me and a G-tube like me, and now we’re friends,” Emerson said, with Yazmine adding, “We’re like twins, but we don’t look alike.”  

Their moms, Sarah Wolven, strategic initiatives project manager for patient experience, and Taunya Sadler, a registered nurse in the NICU, work at Arkansas Children’s and have loved watching their children’s friendship blossom.  

"It's great because they're not alone. They have somebody who knows how it feels to be different and who goes through similar things. He has to have a lot of blood transfusions; she doesn't. He got his central line out before she did," Sadler said, with Wolven adding, "They're both in the hospital a lot for different things."  

It has been challenging when healthier children at school are curious about their children’s condition.  

“Some kids will ask, ‘Why do you have that?’ or ‘It’s going to hurt when you get that taken out,’” Sadler said.  

Wolven said her son's peers ask why he's smaller than them and why he has to be in the hospital a lot. That's why having a friend who understands this unique condition is so important.  

“He’s like the world to me,” Yazmine said about Emerson.  

Once, when Emerson was getting a blood transfusion at ACH, he wanted to call Yazmine on his iPad. She beat him to it.  

"Yazzy called me right then. It turns out she was in the hospital too," he said. He visited her ACH room after his transfusion.  

The two never question if the other isn’t feeling well, like when Emerson had to leave the skating rink once because he felt weak and needed a blood transfusion.  

“I told him isn’t it nice that you don’t have to feel bad for leaving early because she understands, and he said, ‘Yeah, Momma, she just understands everything that I say,’” Wolven said, adding it’s a story she shares with new hires at Arkansas Children’s.  

Wolven and Sadler also said it’s nice to know they’re not alone in the stresses of raising a child with unique medical needs.  

“It’s inspiring to see other families make their new normal out of medically complex journeys and see their child thriving and happy,” Wolven said.  

It’s a journey that Sadler has been able to share with other families who have children newly diagnosed with SBS in the NICU.  

"I can talk to parents whose child just got diagnosed with short bowel syndrome. I teach them about central line care and G-tube care," she said. "I tell them about my 9-year-old going through it and that they can get through it."  

Besides their conditions, Emerson and Yazmine have something else in common — their gratitude for the care teams at Arkansas Children’s.  

“Thank you for taking care of us,” they said together.  

*This article was written by the Arkansas Children’s content team.

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