The parents of a little girl named Darcy, Chris and Peter, were very happy when she was born, because they wanted to have a baby. After adoption they took the girl to his apartment in a quiet area, hoping that now heal this family.
However, life sometimes has other plans for us. Has not passed also several months as Darcy’s ill: her skin and the whites of his eyes turned yellow. Chris and Peter immediately went to the doctor, and initial inspection showed that something was wrong. The pediatrician advised the parents to consult a specialist on diseases of the liver.
A month later, the test results showed that she had liver failure.
Rare disease
Doctors diagnosed Darcy a rare genetic disease, progressive family intrahepatic cholestasis type 2 or Byler’s syndrome, which prevents the cells of the liver to properly get rid of bile, forcing it to release it into the bloodstream. If nothing is done, sooner or later the liver will cease to function. In other words, without a liver transplant girl dies.
A similar verdict has led parents to despair, because in the state of new York the queue for a liver transplant lasted for 2,000 people, and it’s the shortest list in the country.
Specialists at children’s hospital, «Morgan Stanley» in new York believed that Darcy may not need a liver transplant before graduating from high school or College. However, the disease caused a lot of inconvenience to the baby. The bile in the blood was the cause of constant itchingand parents had to constantly make sure that the girl does not brush her skin to wounds.
When Darcy was about a year, she went through the first operation directed to withdraw the bile from her blood in a special container, attached to her body, which could be emptied several times a day. Health Darcy after surgery has improved, but this result did not last long, and the doctors said that the transplant cannot be postponed any longer.
Transplantation
Peter and Chris appeared before a choice: to put the daughter in the queue for an organ donor or to find a suitable living donor, who could share his liver. In the second case, the operation is to replace the diseased liver of a healthy organ donor. Over time, a healthy liver will grow to full size. Then Chris and Peter decided to undergo the compatibility test and it turned out that they both are suitable for transplantation.
After some thought, the couple decided that a donor will be Peter, as his job allows him to take a longer sick leave.
After a few months the girl had removed her liver and transplanted about 15 percent of the liver for her father. Fortunately, the surgery was successful, and the girl survived. After a couple of weeks after the surgery, Darcy got to his feet. Peter quickly recovered and returned to work in six weeks. Immediately after the surgery the baby needed to drink dozens of different medications, but now she drinks only one. Darcy is healthyand the doctors say she will live a long life.
