Mike and I just wanted to share a quick Annabelle update in regards to her rejection. Luckily, her liver numbers are trending down and not increasing. They aren’t trending down as fast as we’d like but at least we’re moving in the right direction! Unforuntately, the way to get her body to “accept” this new organ is to increase her Prograf (primary anti-rejection med) and her Prednisone (steriod). Because of these medication increases she’s been much more cranky, restless, tired, and ultra sensitive to everything. She’ll still smile some but not nearly as often. They should be weaning her steriods down so hopefully she’ll start acting like herself again soon.
In other news, we have completed all of our transplant teaching and have come up with a medication schedule that works for us. Once discharged, Annabelle will be on 10 different medications taken over six times a day with a total of 19 doses of meds altogether…luckily we have a cheat sheet! Most of these medications will wean or be elimanted after six months pending there are no further rejection episodes (many meds are added to treat the side effects of the high Prograf and Prednisone). The toughest medication she’s on is Lovenox, which is a blood thinner injection we have to give Annabelle twice a day for 3 months. Mike has been able to give her two injections so far but I just haven’t built up enough courage to do it myself. Please pray for me to be able to do this because it so hard to see her cry!
With it being the weekend, today has been a relatively slow day and we anticipate the same for tomorrow. We’ll be sure to update as we have more news. Love to you all!
Prayer Requests:
1.) Continued prayer for the donor’s family.
2.) Continued prayer for exceptional nurses (we’ve been very blessed in 7B and we want that to continue).
3.) Continued prayer for no infections, no clotting, and no future episodes of rejection.
4.) Continued prayer for low ammonia and low lactate (ammonia is still hanging around high 50’s and lactate is 3.0 – higher than we’d like them to be but we hope these levels will drop as Annabelle adapts to her new liver).
5.) Continued prayer that Annabelle’s drainage would clear up so her JP drain can be removed.
6.) Pray that Annabelle’s current episode of rejection would resolve quickly, and that her liver numbers would continue to trend down. Also pray that Annabelle’s body would accept this liver as her own.