EXCERPT FROM MASS EMAIL TO FRIENDS

“Hi everyone, Some of you already know that yesterday Rose received the gift of a new liver. She'd been on the waiting list for just four weeks, but her medical team reckon the donor liver came along in the nick of time. Her bleeding was becoming serious, to the point that no matter how many transfusions she had, nothing was really working anymore.

We had even gone as far as having me tested for liver donation, a step that Australian transplant teams are very reluctant to take, especially when the donor already has other children. I had passed all the tests, had a CT scan, and was all ready to go through with it if she deteriorated suddenly without a donor organ becoming available. We're so relieved that things didn't need to go that far.

We've had a huge couple of days, and we're all tired, but everything's gone beautifully so far. The surprise news is that the surgeons discovered that Rose's pancreas seems to be fine after all. (For those of you with a medical background, her lipase is plum normal today!) It seems that a couple of large structures on the diseased liver itself had been pressing on the pancreas, apparently causing Rose's pancreatitis. The surgeons and the liver specialist had never before seen the likes of this thing that had developed on Rose's former liver. [warning: images of the actual diseased liver at the following link] The old liver was so diseased it was like a "little brick". . . Better out than in, eh!

Tonight Shane and I are home together for the first time since New Year's Eve. This is because Rose doesn't know whether we're there or not at the moment, thank goodness. She's heavily sedated in Intensive Care, to prevent her moving too much while her new liver settles in. We'll be back with her constantly as soon as she shows any sign of rousing.

The liver is already working really well, but it will take a while for her severe jaundice to clear. There may be any number of complications to come, but there's no point worrying about that yet. The transplant surgeon says he has never seen a transplanted child look so good in ICU immediately after surgery.

I must go to bed. We're on top of the world! We're so lucky! I've attached a couple of photos: one of us with Rose in the hour before she went off for her transplant, and another of Rose with Lewis and Hannah.”