Photos from the Donor Awareness event Mario did in August

Dr. Reyes is the man standing next to them...he's the head of the liver and intestine transplant program and one of the surgeons who did Mario's transplant.

More Mario Awareness...

We're going to meet a photographer from the Living Legacy Foundation on Wednesday for a family photo. Mario's story might be used in a local brochure (including a Spanish version) and on their web-site. Mario's story will help raise awareness about the importance of be an organ donor...

Donate Life. Done Vida.

Mario fun...

labs this am, clinic tmrw

Nice quick easy lab draw this morning...much improved from last time. We have clinic tmrw afternoon so we'll have a doc update then. Meanwhile, Mario is doing well, moving around a lot and being more like a big boy every day. Our latest big step last week: No more bottle except for bedtime!

Well Mario's CMV level dropped to 430 from 1400. I'm still trying to figure out what those numbers/levels translate to...but down is good.

3 pokes today...blah

Poor Mario had 3 attempts at lab draws this morning with no success. I finally just asked them to do a finger poke and get enough blood for the 2 most important tests. I just hate making him go through that. I usually muscle through, but today was the worst - and one of the really good girls was doing it too so I couldn't even be mad at her. His veins were just not "plump" today I guess.

Oh and the CMV test comes back in 24 hours so I'll have that update tmrw. It was one of the "important" ones.

I posted a link to the right. There is this Olympic Snowboarder Chris Klug who is a Liver tranplant recipient and does lots of PR for UNOS, Organ Donation. I thought it was cool to share - since I love Snowboarding AND liver transplant people :)

Enjoy

Just a quick note to let you all know that Mario has been doing fine with his new antibiotics. He has not have any fever or diarrhea so that is a good sign that the virus isn't going nuts. He gets lab tests done tmrw AM and we hope to see the CMV levels going down. Will keep you posted.

CMV Positive

Well, Mario has tested positive for CMV. You can see what this virus is at this link
http://www.cdc.gov/cmv/
I've read a lot about this and we of course knew that it was a high probability, but still frustrating. Mario will go back on an antibiotic and we'll do another lab draw next week to see if the level goes up or down.

Send him some good thoughts :)