03.13.2008 - Transplant Update

From Julian's COTA Journal.

We flew to Palo Alto on Monday morning for a whirlwind tour of appointments and exams at the Children's Hospital at Stanford, following up on our trip last January. The transplant surgeon and his team have decided that they'd like to reconstruct Julian's bladder before doing the transplant, thereby reducing the risk of infection that could result from doing the reconstruction after the transplant, when Julian will already be on immune system suppressants. Everything at Stanford seems to be done in the opposite manner than that which we've prepared for, so this is requiring something of a paradigm shift on our part. Not that there's anything being said by the team at Stanford that doesn't make sense - it's just different. As much as we'd like to believe that medicine is hard science, and that there's only one correct way to do a given procedure... well, that doesn't seem to be the case.

They drew blood while we were there as well, and we're still waiting for the lab results. We're a little on edge, as Julian's total kidney clearance is somewhere in the 8% range at present, and the doctors in Denver are getting nervous.

We're getting nervous too, but are trusting that God will lead us through this as we seek the best possible treatment for Julian's current condition. In the mean time, he's as happy as can be, and has no idea that anything is really wrong (although he's probably starting to wonder why we spend so much time at so many hospitals...).

Anyway, we're still waiting and praying, hoping that the course we're on is in fact the best one for Julian. Thank you for your continued prayer and support as we go through this.