Dylan & Tegan at Kaiser 12.31.2013 A new year is upon us but its not without its hurdles. Over the last 8 months Dylan has been dealing with rejection, additional meds, biopsy, and the typical run of the milll that comes along with liver disease.
Over the past month Dylan was able to be weaned off Prednisone and had 2 sets of good labs, then about 1.5 weeks ago he had a set of elevated labs, which we retested at LPCH again last week and they were showing a trend downwards, we were hopeful we were in the clear. Our transplant team advised us to retest again on Monday, which we did. As the results came flooding in late at night we knew that our hopes and wishes for the new year were going to take a bit of a turn towards the complicated side. Our team first mentioned that Dylan "most likely" would need another biopsy and they would touch base in the am after the on call doc could review and discuss with the rest of the team.
Yesterday was kicked off with a mid morning call from our transplant coordinator. If I haven't said it before, I must say it now and/or again...Sarah is a blessing to our family, she is always available to us, always compassionate, and she's downright a wonderful person. As with so many whom dedicate their lives to this work that they do; they truly do it for the love of these children. We have always felt so fortunate to have these folks in our lives given that we are engulfed in this life and our only sanity is held in these folks hands and their continued commitment to our child.
We were advised that unfortunately Dylan needs to restart back on Prednisone (15mg dose), as they suspect the onset of rejection. I don't think I need to go into details about how much I hate this drug. Its the one that I call the devil and I feel sorry for Dylan and the changes that he is forced to go through from this medication; its not just the outwardly appearance (massive weight gain), its the horrible emotional side effects of this drug that I can't stand. He becomes so enraged on it, short attention span, and an overall constant state of frustration. It's not fun to watch or deal with. I feel bad saying that but he is very difficult while on this drug to say the least. Needless to say we contacted Dr. Rich (Dylan's Kaiser GI doc) and had him put in the Rx for the med. Within a short time we were at Kaiser Pharmacy and Dylan back to ingesting the med.
In addition, the doc wants further testing done on Dylan. They want to see if he has some level of autoimmune hepatitis going on. Ever since birth Dylan has had extremely high Eosinophils (white blood cells of the immune system that fight parasitic infections and control/associated with allergies). Every time Dylan has had a biopsy of his liver, there is always Eosinophils found. The preliminary "thought" which at this point in time is nothing more than that, is that potentially his Prograf (anti-rejection med) which is known to cause major allergy issues, is causing Dylan's body to see his liver as an allergy and fighting/attacking it...as opposed to ignoring it. Amber and I have mentioned Dylan's allergy related stuff to LPCH many times, he has been tested at Kaiser multiple times as well, and we pushed to have Stanford allergy dept to take a look into his case just last year (ironically around this same time, as we were in the hospital for a biopsy as well). Back then they advised they didn't see any reason to continue with looking deeper b/c they didn't feel there was a direct correlation...so that was that. But now that our transplant team wants this investigated further, perhaps we will get some much needed insight or perhaps its a dead end and we are left to look into something else.
Although our new year has started in a complex manner, just as last year and year before. I suppose it doesn't mean this is how the remainder of the year will trend. I will say its frustrating, its complicated, its difficult, and we have no means to know how or where we will end up. All we can do is be hopeful that this journey brings us one step closer to peace, happiness, and above all...health in this new year.
-Noah
Over the past month Dylan was able to be weaned off Prednisone and had 2 sets of good labs, then about 1.5 weeks ago he had a set of elevated labs, which we retested at LPCH again last week and they were showing a trend downwards, we were hopeful we were in the clear. Our transplant team advised us to retest again on Monday, which we did. As the results came flooding in late at night we knew that our hopes and wishes for the new year were going to take a bit of a turn towards the complicated side. Our team first mentioned that Dylan "most likely" would need another biopsy and they would touch base in the am after the on call doc could review and discuss with the rest of the team.
Yesterday was kicked off with a mid morning call from our transplant coordinator. If I haven't said it before, I must say it now and/or again...Sarah is a blessing to our family, she is always available to us, always compassionate, and she's downright a wonderful person. As with so many whom dedicate their lives to this work that they do; they truly do it for the love of these children. We have always felt so fortunate to have these folks in our lives given that we are engulfed in this life and our only sanity is held in these folks hands and their continued commitment to our child.
We were advised that unfortunately Dylan needs to restart back on Prednisone (15mg dose), as they suspect the onset of rejection. I don't think I need to go into details about how much I hate this drug. Its the one that I call the devil and I feel sorry for Dylan and the changes that he is forced to go through from this medication; its not just the outwardly appearance (massive weight gain), its the horrible emotional side effects of this drug that I can't stand. He becomes so enraged on it, short attention span, and an overall constant state of frustration. It's not fun to watch or deal with. I feel bad saying that but he is very difficult while on this drug to say the least. Needless to say we contacted Dr. Rich (Dylan's Kaiser GI doc) and had him put in the Rx for the med. Within a short time we were at Kaiser Pharmacy and Dylan back to ingesting the med.
In addition, the doc wants further testing done on Dylan. They want to see if he has some level of autoimmune hepatitis going on. Ever since birth Dylan has had extremely high Eosinophils (white blood cells of the immune system that fight parasitic infections and control/associated with allergies). Every time Dylan has had a biopsy of his liver, there is always Eosinophils found. The preliminary "thought" which at this point in time is nothing more than that, is that potentially his Prograf (anti-rejection med) which is known to cause major allergy issues, is causing Dylan's body to see his liver as an allergy and fighting/attacking it...as opposed to ignoring it. Amber and I have mentioned Dylan's allergy related stuff to LPCH many times, he has been tested at Kaiser multiple times as well, and we pushed to have Stanford allergy dept to take a look into his case just last year (ironically around this same time, as we were in the hospital for a biopsy as well). Back then they advised they didn't see any reason to continue with looking deeper b/c they didn't feel there was a direct correlation...so that was that. But now that our transplant team wants this investigated further, perhaps we will get some much needed insight or perhaps its a dead end and we are left to look into something else.
Although our new year has started in a complex manner, just as last year and year before. I suppose it doesn't mean this is how the remainder of the year will trend. I will say its frustrating, its complicated, its difficult, and we have no means to know how or where we will end up. All we can do is be hopeful that this journey brings us one step closer to peace, happiness, and above all...health in this new year.
-Noah
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