Trey is feeling better! Last night they told us his chest x-rays were showing a viral pneumonia, which can be scary with him having a low immune system. His chest x-rays from Sat night at the ER were clear. They are trying to determine what other virus “started” the pneumonia and still waiting for answers from a lot of tests and cultures. Dr. Fleek started him on an antibiotic in Lincoln and they have continued that here in order to prevent any other infections from starting or to help get rid of one. Since early this morning he has had no fever. His blood work this morning shows his hemoglobin at 8, down from yesterday afternoons of 8.2. His platelet count has reached a low of 30,down from 44. We are waiting on the word of whether or not he will be receiving blood. He has also shown interest in wanting food and drink. We are hoping to get an ok to try some. He hasn’t had anything to eat since Sat at noon and that was very little. They have still been pumping him with lots of fluids. He has times where he shows he is feeling better. During the night he had enough strength to fight, kick and stand up when I tried putting him the crib. He doesn’t want any “stranger” touching or looking at him. We will sit and wait, hoping to be home tomorrow to celebrate Anna’s 5th birthday.

The helicopter ride went great. I knew I wasn’t leaving my baby and I had to do this, there was never a question other than letting Jeff ride since I knew he would enjoy it but he wasn’t at the hospital and they were ready to go. Thanks to the pilot the ride was very smooth and surprisingly I did not get sick. I actually looked most of the time out the window tracking our progress. It was a beautiful morning for a helicopter ride and the air blowing in added to the peacefulness of it. As soon as we started moving Trey was asleep. There was a little mix up and the pilot started making a landing at Children’s Hospital but back up we went and we reached our destination at UNMC. The whole trip took around 15 minutes.

Thanks for everyones thoughts and prayers!

Actually there isn’t much to report. The trip from Lincoln to Omaha went faster than expected as they “upgraded” Trey from ground transportation to air travel. He and his mom got to ride in a helicopter all the way here. Keep in mind that Jackie has a hard time standing on ladders so the helicopter was a whole new experience. Once here, they continued to do tests in an effort to figure out what’s wrong with Trey. The leading cadidate right now is still a virus which could be as simple as something common or as serious as menengitus. They have done a lot of blood cultures, x-rays and are going to do a sinus test to rule out a respiratory virus. He remains in pediatric intensive care and will be here for a couple of days for sure. The results of his last lab were encouraging as his hemoglobin numbers went up a little. Should they drop again there is a high liklihood that he will need a transfusion.

After one of the best months that he has had since Transplant, Trey landed back in the hospital Saturday night. During the day we attended his very first Transplant Reunion in Omaha and enjoyed a day of meeting great people (Hello Liver Families ), playing games and listening to the latest updates in technology and medicine as it relates to organ transplantation. Even when we got back home things were going well but about 10pm we noticed Trey had a fever. In fact, he registered a fever of 105.8 so off to the ER we went. They checked him out and drew blood, chest x-ray, urine cultures in the ER and everything came back normal for him, and after a couple of hours they sent us back home. The rest of Saturday night we battled the fever with tylenol and it never dropped below 104. Sunday morning it roared back up to 106 and back to the hospital we went. This time they decided to admit him into Bryan East. Again more blood tests were ran and they even did a spinal tap to test for menengitis. The blood work showed some not so good things. His liver numbers had shot up very rapidly overnight (some tripled) and his hemoglobin had begun to drop. They decided to keep him overnight to monitor all this and run more blood tests this morning. These tests werent any better. While his liver numbers seem to have stablized about the same place his hemoglobin has dropped to scary levels (7.2) and platlet count has reached 50. As a result of this, Trey Drs. in Omaha have asked that he be transported via ambulance there to be admitted into UNMC so they can better follow the changes. Right now they are saying that a transfusion of blood isnt imminent but that the low hemoglobin numbers are very concerning as are his rising liver numbers and so he will be admitted into Intensive Care.

So, off we go, back to Omaha for Treys 5th hospital stay in 19 months. I will try to keep this space updated as much as I can.

Jeff

That was the theme of the night in Kearney last Saturday night when the Eagle Riders presented Trey with a check to help with ongoing medical bills along with his very own custom leather motorcycle vest. Patrick Spangler Brian Beezly and all the Eagle Riders have been wonderful friends of our family and we cannot express the gratitude we have for this wonderful organization. They continue to help families in need and we encourage you, as we will, to support them whenver you can. Channel 13 also was there to cover the benefit for the Brown Family and spoke to us for a little bit. You can watch the news piece by clicking here.

Click here to view more pictures of the night and to see more of Trey’s vest

Trey’s thank you appeared inthe Columbus Telegram on Sunday July 8th. You can see it by clicking HERE

Yesterday, 7-07-07, we celebrated Trey’s 1 year transplant anniversary. It doesn’t seem possible that it was a year ago. We have great reasons to celebrate our sons second chance at life and we thank God every day for this. We want to thank Trey’s hero, aunt Christa, who bravely donated part of her own liver to help save his life. We would also like to thank all of our families and friends for their continued prayers and support for Trey and our family. We wouldn’t have made it this far had it not been for you.

The beginning of June Trey had been sick for three weeks, (he was positive for the adenovirus) and after his visit in Omaha there was concern about his weight going back down. No longer! Trey had his 18 month check up last week and he weighed in at a whopping 24.8 lbs putting him at the 25%! This is huge, considering a year ago when he came home he wasn’t even registering on the charts. He is at the 10% for height and Cathy Carter, Trey’s doctor is very happy with his progress and how healthy he has been.

Trey got to start another new medicine a couple weeks ago; Iron drops. This was a huge fight and after tasting it myself I don’t blame him, it is the worst! We just switched over to another kids Iron and so far he is taking this without as much of a fight. We have been warned about how about Iron and all of his medicines aren’t doing his teeth any favors. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. We go to Omaha in a couple weeks for the transplant reunion and the 1st week of August he returns for a check up. We are hoping at that visit to drop a medicine that he has been on since transplant.

We are having a busy summer. It includes camping, watching Emma play softball, playing outside, visits to the Library, swimming and so many other fun things. We are happy to not be living in Omaha nor making so many trips there. Trey loves to play with his sisters Emma and Anna and we keep finding him in the top bunk bed after having climbed the ladder all by himself. We are trying to keep the door shut but he’s got this sixth sense and just seems to always know when it gets left open. He needs his space once in awhile but he sure missed them when they were gone for pet camp at the Racquet Club. Thanks to camp, we have since added two fish to our household.

We made a green ribbon (organ donation awareness) cake yesterday to help us celebrate. We called Christa and visited about last year and what she could remember the 1st day. She remembers waking up in her room, asking for her family and them doing an ultrasound and being in a lot of pain! We talked about how hard it was giving Trey over to the anesthesiologist. And the joy of hearing the updates and that finally it was all over and so quickly. Getting to see both Christa and Trey helped ease up the worries. We had great care from everyone at the Lied Center and UNMC.

If you haven’t all ready and get a chance please read the prior posts. Trey’s cousin, Alex, wrote a touching poem about Trey and there is a link to read an article that was published in the UNOS Magazine about Trey and Christa. New pictures will be added this week.

Happy 1st transplant Anniversary Trey, we love you so much and are looking forward to celebrating many more healthy years and anniversaries with you!