Ananya has been on steroids for 6 days now. She seems so much better than the girl who last thursday had a belly the size of africa and was lying in bed listless, not even able to turn her head from one side to the other. Her belly has shrunk a significant amount, one of the drains in her belly stopped draining, and she's eating, laughing and playing with us. (The steroids make her a little cranky).
That's the good news. Unfortunately the amount of fluid out of her abdomen (the ascites) while diminished is still significant. Enough for the transplant docs to think she may not be responding completely to the steroids, and that there may still be some rejection left to go after. So she's scheduled for a liver biopsy tommorrow to see. If there's rejection - she'll get a t-cell antibody treatment - thymoglobulin or OKT3. Both have reasonable side effects so I hope the biopsy looks good, and that by tommorrow the ascites has reduced to nothing. I know, I know - wishful thinking.
Interestingly it was briefly mentioned to us that Ananya being of Indian origin may have something to do with the rejection she's had. One of the tranpslant docs. looked back at the last 4 transplants done here which involved a caucasian donor and indian recipient. All of them had rejection to a significant degree. 4's a pretty small number but interesting none the less.
So here's to hoping Ananya's belly dries up soon..
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