Olivia Williams is two years old and was diagnosed with TARS Syndrome the day she was born.
/ Katie McKee
SUMTER, SC (WACH) -- Olivia Williams is two years old and was diagnosed with TARS Syndrome the day she was born.
Thrombocytopenia Absent Radius Syndrome is a disorder that prevents children from producing platelets and also causes skeletal abnormalities.
In Olivia's case she was born without a ulma and radius, the two bones in your forearm.
While Rachel Williams was pregnant with Olivia doctors knew there was a problem, but she wasn't disgnosed with TARS until birth.
"It didn't really matter what she had, we just wanted to be able to cope with it the best that we could," said Rachel Williams.
Olivia's family takes the two year old to Palmetto Health Children's Hospital where she receives platelet transfusions once a week.
According to Dr. Ron Neuberg, who has cared for Olivia during her time at Palmetto Health, the average person has anywhere from 150,000 to 400, 000 platelets, and anything under 50,000 is severly low.
There has been times Olivia has been admitted to the hospital with only a thousand platelets.
Olivia has had more problems with the low platelets than the average TARS patient. Usually the platelet count normalizes by the time the child is one or two years of age," said Dr. Neuberg.
Dr. Neuberg found a blood specialist in Pennslyvannia who works with TARS patients at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
There will be a fundraiser Saturday to help Olivia make the trip to Philadelphia. A yard sale is being held Saturday morning at 7 a.m. with a BBQ lunch at 11 a.m. at 5 Riley Street in Sumter.
Olivia's parents are amazed with their daughter everyday, and her abilty to adapt to her physical disabilities, they just hope that eventually she will grow to produce her own platelets.
They said they have had a ton of support from family, friends, the community, and their church in Sumter.
The shelf life of platelets lasts seven to 10 days, and the Red Cross is always excepting blood donations. For more information click here.
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