Not the best start to life post transplant!

This is not the start to our post-transplant lives we had hoped for! William has pneumonia in both lungs and has been really quite poorly. We thought for a while he may have needed support from some form of mechanical ventilation but, so far, he has held his own with the help of a fair whack of oxygen. Things are settling now and we are keeping everything crossed that he doesn't get any secondary infection or rejection.

Rejection is a big risk as the immune response he mounted to fight the infection is exactly what we are trying to suppress. There is a real threat that he could attack his new bowel as a 'side effect' from attacking his infection. One sign of this is to find sugar in his stoma fluid, as a result of the bowel not working and absorbing so effectively. William usually has no sugar or 1/4 percent. He is up to 1 percent today and 2 percent is indicative of rejection. I am hoping this is due to him being unwell rather than the start of rejection. Most small bowel transplant recipients experience some level of rejection in the first couple of years and I am confident we will get on top of any such opportunistic rejection if it does occur. What concerns me more is the fact he has some fluid in his abdominal cavity (ascites), something he has not had before. The team here feel it is secondary to the pneumonia and the fact he had poor renal function when he first got to the hospital. This has settled in his blood tests now but he was really thirsty and dehydrated in his bloods yet overloaded in terms of his fluid intake and has put on 2kgs of weight in 2 days (from 15-17 kg) This fluid had to go somewhere and can end up in places such as the abdominal cavity. This is very painful for him, as is the pneumonia, so the poor thing is in a bit of a state. He so deserves some happy and healthy times to enjoy his new tummy. I hope they are just around the corner and will be here to stay for a while.