EXCERPT FROM EMAIL TO FRIEND IN THE UK
This is again my Australian friend living in the UK whose baby girl is just 10 days older than Rose.
"Rose was placed on the transplant waiting list one week ago, and she's chubby and happy and gorgeous. She has no idea she has end-stage liver failure! It's weird! The doctors reckon kids cope with liver failure heaps better than adults do - I don't get it! Adults would be lying in a hospital bed feeling at death's door, while kids like Rose play and laugh and babble all day long. What's the story?
It's a nerve-wracking wait, a bit like waiting for a baby to arrive, really. Very much like it. Every day, you wake up thinking "Is it going to happen today?" Rose is so "ripe" for transplant, having finally grown almost to the weight they wanted her to get to, remaining infection-free, doing all the right things. The challenge now is that she might start to deteriorate before the right liver comes along.
But as usual, there is much to be hopeful about. The transplant surgeon, who we have come to love, again came to see us tonight, and gave us a very upbeat talk about his opinion of Rose's long-term survival chances. He's an inspiring man who seems to know what he's doing, and reckons Rose should be transplanted in the next couple of weeks and should do very well. He's putting her long-term survival chances well over 90 percent. If she gets through the first week post-transplant, her chances of a near-normal life are great. Apparently if things go wrong, it all tends to happen soon after transplant, but he says Rose is in good shape.
Of course, the one thing he can't do is magically produce a liver for Rose! I feel that I can't say "fingers crossed", because we can't get away from the fact that we are waiting on somebody's death and their family's generosity! How can I hope for that? I don't hope for that, but of course I hope that Rose can be healthy. One of the paediatric liver specialists today said that in the future when a child needs an organ transplant we should be able to ring the tissue engineering bank and request a size 1 liver/heart/whatever for a baby with A-positive blood group. Still, we're so much further ahead than the situation was twenty years ago when these kids always died.
Anyhow, I look forward very much to getting back on the path of having a baby at home to write to you about. It really will be like bringing Rose home for the first time, after she has a transplant.”
This is again my Australian friend living in the UK whose baby girl is just 10 days older than Rose.
"Rose was placed on the transplant waiting list one week ago, and she's chubby and happy and gorgeous. She has no idea she has end-stage liver failure! It's weird! The doctors reckon kids cope with liver failure heaps better than adults do - I don't get it! Adults would be lying in a hospital bed feeling at death's door, while kids like Rose play and laugh and babble all day long. What's the story?
It's a nerve-wracking wait, a bit like waiting for a baby to arrive, really. Very much like it. Every day, you wake up thinking "Is it going to happen today?" Rose is so "ripe" for transplant, having finally grown almost to the weight they wanted her to get to, remaining infection-free, doing all the right things. The challenge now is that she might start to deteriorate before the right liver comes along.
But as usual, there is much to be hopeful about. The transplant surgeon, who we have come to love, again came to see us tonight, and gave us a very upbeat talk about his opinion of Rose's long-term survival chances. He's an inspiring man who seems to know what he's doing, and reckons Rose should be transplanted in the next couple of weeks and should do very well. He's putting her long-term survival chances well over 90 percent. If she gets through the first week post-transplant, her chances of a near-normal life are great. Apparently if things go wrong, it all tends to happen soon after transplant, but he says Rose is in good shape.
Of course, the one thing he can't do is magically produce a liver for Rose! I feel that I can't say "fingers crossed", because we can't get away from the fact that we are waiting on somebody's death and their family's generosity! How can I hope for that? I don't hope for that, but of course I hope that Rose can be healthy. One of the paediatric liver specialists today said that in the future when a child needs an organ transplant we should be able to ring the tissue engineering bank and request a size 1 liver/heart/whatever for a baby with A-positive blood group. Still, we're so much further ahead than the situation was twenty years ago when these kids always died.
Anyhow, I look forward very much to getting back on the path of having a baby at home to write to you about. It really will be like bringing Rose home for the first time, after she has a transplant.”
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