Update from Daddy on Baby Adam

Thanks for your prayers. Here’s the latest message from David about Adam:

Dear Friends and Family,

The latest news on Adam is that we checked out of the hospital last night and will be checking back into it on Monday.

Yesterday afternoon I spoke with the surgeon. He has been working on Adam’s case all week. When he did the cholangiogram during Adam’s surgery on Tuesday (inserting contrast to show where the bile ducts are in the liver), he said that he thought he maybe saw some small ducts connecting the liver and the intestines. He also saw very few bile ducts inside the liver (typical of the Alagille Syndrome). This led him to doubt whether Adam had biliary artresia and so he decided not to proceed with the Kasai (connecting a loop of the intestine directly to the liver).

The GI doctor agreed that perhaps Adam’s jaundice is a result of the Alagille Syndrome instead of biliary artresia. Over the last few days they have been running scads of tests to determine whether this is the case: liver tests, heart tests, eye tests, skeletal tests. The surgeon got the pathologist to speed up his examination of the liver biopsy, and yesterday the results were in. It is most probably NOT the Alagille Syndrome and it most probably IS biliary artresia, the original diagnosis.

Although the biliary artresia diagnosis is not 100% positive, the surgeon has decided that he now needs to do the Kasai procedure since the only other option is a liver transplant. This procedure has a much greater chance of succeeding in patients who are less than three months old, so time is of the essence. We are scheduled to check in for surgery at Doernbecher at noon on Monday and the surgery is supposed to start at 1:30pm.

It is more than a little disheartening to be back to square one. Please pray for Adam to stay healthy for the surgery and not suffer too much when he has to go back on his clear liquid diet for 24 hours before the surgery. Please pray for Rose to be able to take care of both twins and handle the emotional stress well. Please pray for David to be able to juggle work, school, and family during this difficult time. And most of all, pray that the surgery would be successful!

In Christ,
David and Rose Spears