Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

We know that it has been a while since our last posting but things have been fairly stable. . .that is until today. Matthew had another biopsy and unfortunately the results were not as good as we had hoped. He has mild rejection. We suspected it before we even got the results because his diastolic dysfunction was somewhat off on the echo and his wedge pressure was high on the right heart cath. He isn't going to go back to the hospital because it wasn't bad enough for that but his steroids which had almost been tapered off are now on higher than they ever were before. About 25% of heart recipients will have rejection in the first year. We were certainly hoping that we would be one of those families without any rejection because the mortality rate goes way up now and the longevity of the heart goes down. They have tried to tell us not be too concerned and that they see this all the time . . . I wonder if they have ever been parents.

Needless to say, we are frustrated. It looks like more house arrest is what we are in for. The frustrating thing is that we have done everything that they have asked of us to the T. We haven't missed any doses of any of his drugs, haven't taken him out, and have kept masks on (in our house) until about 10 days ago. Oh how I wish we understood more about immune system.

Matthew doesn't know any different. They call it silent rejection or early rejection because it really hasn't affected him much or his ability to function. Our next biopsy will be in two weeks and we hope that things will look better then. Please keep him in your prayers and we will try to keep you posted.

9 comments:

  1. I'm sorry to hear about the biopsy results. You will be in our prayers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. i am sorry as well to hear about the results. We will continue to pray for Matthew. Please let us know how we can help. Rachel and family

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh Chrissy! I am so sad to hear that. I thought about you so much, since our conversation. You need to text me your phone number since it got deleted from my phone. You, Matthew and your entire family will be in our prayers! We send our love and faith that all will be ok. XO

    ReplyDelete
  4. Chris, this (above) was Jen not Ben. Not sure why it did that.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, I'm so sorry. Your family and little Matthew are continually in our prayers. We love you!
    Clark & Lisa

    ReplyDelete
  6. I was wondering why I hadn't heard from you, and figured (hoped) it was because you're incredibly busy...with normal, happy things. I'm bummed. I hope the doctors are right when they suggest you not be too concerned.

    I love you guys.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm so sorry to hear about the biopsy results! Hopefully the next one will be better. We'll be praying for Matthew and your family.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh, I was so flustered to read this, it just doesn't make sense-- We have you in our thoughts and prayers and please let us help any way we can!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I am so sorry about these results. Please know that you are in our prayers.

    ReplyDelete