Finished Transplant Evaluation

Well, yesterday was a VERY LONG day. Mario was a trooper through it all. Israel and I were pretty much mentally spent by 430pm when we left the hospital. We continue to be impressed with how organized everyone is. Mario is in good hands. He seems to have passed on the cardio, EKG, etc. tests to ensure that the rest of his body can handle this major surgery. The nutritionist confirmed we're doing all the right things with food/vitamin supplements as Mario is still gaining weight. The challenge is to ensure it is "real" weight and not weight from his liver and spleen which are starting to enlarge. So, her job will be to monitor that closely now. He will start to be at higher and higher risk of portal hyper tension, varices and other issues in the weeks/months pre-transplant. We met the hemotologist and one of the surgeons. All very informative, helpful. We'll get confirmation on Mon/Tue but it sounds very likely that they will decide on Monday to list him now. His PELD score is a 1 (range -10 to 40)...the higher the number the more critical the need for a new liver. The benefit of transplant outweighs the benefits of continued growth/development at around 15. Mario is O+ so the most common blood type, but they also consider size appropriateness of a liver...since he is small this is a major consideration. It sounds like they do about a 50/50 split of whole liver versus split liver transplants, so it could really be either one. We can also do work to identify potential living donor(s) in advance. Israel and I are starting to work out how that works (the donor is processed through UW Medical). Those are the highlights...I know this is a not very well laid out update. As you can imagine, my brain is full of various facts and details - these are the ones that seem noteworthy at the moment. I'm answering email regularly so feel free to drop me a note if you have specific questions. Please keep Mario in your thoughts, our love, Phoebe and fam