God's Miracle! Now Generosity of a Living Liver Donor Needed!

Journeywomen and Journeymen,

The update that follows was news that we did not see coming, nothing short of a miracle. Thanks to all of you with your support and prayers. Yet the word is not done, we need your active involvement now more than ever.

As I shared in the last post, Bridget went in for a biopsy for one specific lesion in her liver that appeared different than all the others on her PET scan. The liver transplant team wanted it biopsied to see if it was growing more aggressively than her other tumors. If the results showed the lesion was growing more aggressively, then a liver transplant would be off the table with University of Chicago. The procedure was on April 12 and while they were already there biopsing the lesion they also ablated it. We didn't get the results for 12 long days (you can imagine our anticipation!). Bridget and Craig had a Zoom meeting with her Liver doctor and also the head of the transplant department to discuss the results. The biopsy came back that the tumor is well differentiated and slow growing at a KI-67 rate of 12%. They were happy with those results. Thank you Doc, that is great news!

They gave her the go ahead to start the screening process for a liver transplant! The first thing is to get insurance approval (which she has), then meet with several people to evaluate her. She had a virtual meeting with a nutritionist, social worker and pharmacist and today had in person appointments at University of Chicago with her liver doctor and the liver surgeon. During this appointment they did extensive blood work, then as a follow up she has to get an echo of her heart, a mammogram and pap smear and possibly another scan. After the results are in from all the tests, they will then decide if they will take her case and list her on the master deceased liver donor list. Because her liver function is normal her MELD score puts her at the bottom of the list. Meaning it would be really difficult for her to get a deceased liver unless she was to actually go into liver failure. The liver transplant surgeon's preference (and ours too) is to do a living donor liver transplant as we have more control over the process and the results are associated with better outcomes. During her in-person meeting with the surgeon they told her to go ahead and start seeking a liver donor so that once she is approved things could move quicker. This is what we hoped and prayed for.

She just received a packet of information on living donor requirements so we will send a follow up post about those details. But at a minimum this person would need to be in good health, below 50 years old and have a blood type of B+ (Bridget's blood type), B-, O+ or O-.

This would not just be an extension of life, it would be a major improvement of life. This transplant would eliminate the cortisol in Bridget’s body, playing havoc with blood pressure, potassium, bone density and the inability to gain weight. It would allow her to go off of several medications and would bring her abdomen back to a normal size eliminating constant pain and discomfort and the need to get weekly taps of fluid from her abdomen. So to all our Journey People out there, thank you for your prayers, gifts and good thoughts. We know we have challenges in front of us, but not today, for today is probably the first time to celebrate in over 2.5 years.

Please pass the word on this and when we put the requirements up, please add to your social media pages. Our goal is 50000 views and we believe that if God has brought us this far He is not going to drop us now. Yet, we are learning God lays out the path and leaves the actions to us all... Thank you for you help in advance.

God Bless

Ron