We’re on the list!

As I mentioned in my previous post, the primary goals of the past few days in Dallas have been 1) to get Becky to a point where she’s stable overall, and 2) to complete her evaluation and provide that information to the liver team in order to obtain a recommendation to be placed on the national transplant list.

With regards to the first goal…

Becky’s liver continued to degrade as did her health. The failing liver started putting pressure on her kidneys. That led to a whole new series of problems. She’s now on CRRT dialysis in the ICU. This is basically a continuous dialysis machine that does the job her kidneys would normally do. The purpose is to give her kidneys a break so they don’t fail before a transplant would happen. She’s also been fighting low blood pressure. They used a couple different techniques to get her blood pressure back up to an acceptable level. It is significantly better today than it was a couple days ago, so that’s a plus. Overall, she’s weak but doing her best to stay strong until the team can find a liver to recommend for transplant. She’s quite a bit better than she was earlier in the week when her blood pressure was hanging out in the upper 70s/30s. She was not doing great. In fact, the surgeons were hesitant to put her on the list because she might not be able to handle the surgery. Some days have been a little better than others, but getting her healthy enough for surgery and finding a suitable transplant sooner rather than later are the only way she’s going to get to play with our grandkids.

Now for some updates relative to the second goal…

The team that makes the decision to put her on the transplant list actually met early (on Wednesday) just to review Becky’s case and gave preliminary, conditional approval based on the outcome of the heart tests and improved blood pressure. All signs pointed to a positive recommendation once those conditions were met. The initial cardiac stress test on Wednesday did not provide complete results. Everything was good as far as they could go, but they couldn’t get her heart rate to where they wanted it - primarily due to her low blood pressure. They did some additional testing and gave a thumbs up for the heart on Thursday. By this morning her blood pressure had stabilized, meds were being reduced, and they were starting to remove some of her extra fluids. At about 10:00 this morning the surgeon stopped by to give a thumbs up and say Becky would be activated on the national transplant list today! Yay! Even better, he was hopeful (no guarantees obviously) they may find a liver as soon as this weekend! Keep praying!

Footnotes…

We’re in Dallas for the duration at this point. Becky will probably remain in ICU until a qualified candidate is found, presented to us, and we accept. We have the option to accept or pass and wait for another based on what we know about the health history of the donor and any possible risks. If not for the CRRT dialysis machine she could probably be in a regular room, but that particular device is only managed in the ICU. I’ll be in a hotel from now until they release us to return to Austin (typically a month or so after the surgery).

I also want to say that after spending the week here, we definitely feel like we’re in the right place. The team at UT Southwestern has been incredible. Becky has been taken care of by an awesome team all the way from our initial planned visit to the clinic on Monday through our time in ICU starting Wednesday afternoon. A huge “Thank you” to that incredible team!

We’re not done yet, but certainly on the right road. Posts will continue for those who want to continue keeping up!