I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13
The situation is serious, and very delicate. Nathan's liver is not functioning properly. He has a condition called veno-occlusive disorder. It is a side effect of the chemotherapy. This condition is not very well understood, and there are not a lot of treatments. They have made some corrections to medicines to be less stressful on his liver, and eliminated the IV nutrition and other medicines that are hard on his liver. So far there is no damage to the liver tissue, it was caught at the early stages.
They are starting a trial drug today called Defribrotide. If this doesn't work, there's not a lot of other options. This condition can be life threatening. The bilirubin count is an indicator of the health of his liver function, and it has been increasing which isn't good. The trial medication will be given every six hours for 21 days. After the medicine is given, it is just a waiting game to see if Nathan's body will heal itself. We could possibly see some improvement within 72 hours to one week.
He had his first decreases in his bilirubin by a very small amount this morning, praise God! Any decrease is a very good thing. The fluid in his belly has also gone down, and he ate his first ounce of milk this afternoon. This is all encouraging. They will have to put him back on the IV nutrition tomorrow since he still is not eating regularly.
As far as the transplant goes, his counts are going up. His ANC was 504 Monday, but they were down to 441 yesterday (which is normal), today his ANC is 851! After three consecutive days at 500 the transplant is considered engrafted. That could be Friday!
Please pray for Nathan:
1. His liver to start functioning normally
2. For the condition to not progress
3. For his bilirubin count to go down
4. To start eating.
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