And the Results......

We got the biopsy results about 2 in the afternoon.  She has significant lymphocytic infiltration in her kidney (well, Jorge's kidney) but no evidence of permanent rejection.  In English?  There is evidence of early acute rejection.  There are no antibodies against the new kidney in her blood, but lymphocytes are the cells that make the antibodies.  The fact that they are snooping around in her kidney, where they have no business doing more than passing through, is alarming.  The fact that they haven't visibly gone on the attack yet, reassuring.

The bottom line is that they must be stopped. So today, tomorrow and Friday Babygirl is getting more steroids.  A LOT more - for those who speak this language, she is getting prednisolone 300 mg. per dose.  I can tell you from personal experience that 32 mg/day nearly made me insane, but so far she is merely giddy.

And speaking of giddy, the meds they gave her to overcome the tickling sensation of the biopsy procedure (yeah, really.  Tickling?) had not worn off yet when she got up this morning.  Those of you who have seen her trip over the carpet at church with a lit flame while accolyting will have to take my word for it:  She surpassed all previously known levels of uncoordination.  Picture the trajectory of Woodstock's flight, only on the ground. 

Next news is on the neutrophils.  She's still low, so they (after I nagged steadily for 36 hours) called a hematology consult.  The went back to her original blood work, while on dialysis, and made a way cool graph of all her counts from then until now.  I was able to pinpoint dates - transplant, last hospital stay, Neupogen injections.

They feel that this is related to the transplant/meds (well, okay, since she was never sick a minute before this) but admit it could be a random coincidentally timed separate disaster (okay, pick one, boys.).  At this point they are going to watch what happens when they give the steroids.  If it's transplant/med related, her counts will come up as a side effect of the steroids.  If not, then they need to consider, at some point, whether her bone marrow will need to be looked at, which would give us another fun run with the sedation team, but that's a question for another (hopefully distant) day.

The best news is that they feel she can attend school if her count is over 500 (currently we've been out for counts under 1000).  So barring some new disaster, she'll return to school on Monday.

So all in all it's not as bad as it might be.  But these people owe a HUGE apology to Mr. and Mrs. O.  If I had known we were going to be here for FIVE days instead of two they might have wanted to keep their car LOL.  And frankly, if I'd have known we were going to be here for five days I'd have brought more clothing (and some WINE).

DeeDee