Thank you for following along on Facebook for brief updates about transplant day. As promised, we’re sharing more details now that Danielle is recovering back at home.
On August 19, exactly five months after Jonah’s March 19 Kasai procedure, he received his liver transplant. Jonah and Danielle’s surgeries were the first transplants of the day and they were also the “two biggest surgeries at the hospital” that day — no pressure! Just before 6 a.m., Danielle went back to pre-op to begin preparing for surgery (COVID test, IVs, etc.). Around 7 a.m. Jonah and Sean arrived in the same pre-op room for prep so all could be together one last time. In pre-op, each surgeon, doctor, and nurse who would participate in the procedure room came by to introduce themselves and really provided a sense of comfort and confidence in what was about to take place.
Around 8:30 a.m. Danielle went back to her operating room with the living donor surgery team to extract 14% of her liver to be placed in Jonah. Shortly after her operation started, Jonah went back to his adjacent operating room to begin removing his cirrhosis liver (it was worse than we expected). Around 1 p.m., Danielle’s liver was walked over to Jonah’s room to be placed. During Danielle’s surgery, they did need to remove her gallbladder to support her bile flow, which is common in living liver donor surgeries. By 2 p.m. Danielle was sealed up and hanging in post-op. For the next few hours, the pediatric transplant surgery team connected the new liver in Jonah and ensured all of the arteries and veins flowed well. By 4:45 p.m. both Danielle and Jonah were in their respective ICU rooms waking and beginning the recovery phase.
Less than 48 hours after surgery, Danielle left the ICU and moved to a regular recovery room. She also was up walking and had the opportunity to visit Jonah and Sean in their room. The doctor’s said the surgeries went great and could not have gone better. Moving forward, the focus was recovering — breathing, moving, eating, pooping. As a family, we were prepared for Danielle to be in the hospital at least a week and Jonah at least two weeks. We packed for even longer!
To our surprise, Danielle was discharged on Monday and there is lots of talk and pre-planning for Jonah to be discharged on Friday! Of course, if anything changes in Jonah’s excellent progress, he will stay (Sean too) as long as needed to support a strong recovery. The visiting restrictions at the hospital are getting tighter due to COVID-19 in the region — Sean has been patiently persevering through his lock down in the hospital with Jonah, though we all pray they can return home soon before he truly can’t leave the room!
We know the recovery process is long and there will be many frequent visits to Georgetown, but we are so encouraged by the initial results and are full of hope in our Savior for his provisions and comfort through this journey. Know that when you think we are “amazing”, “strong”, and “calm” it is through Christ and would be impossible on our own.
Thank you so much for your prayers and please continue to pray for strong recoveries, perseverance through the process, and giving God the glory each step of the way.