Catch 22

Last Tuesday the 26th was the big meeting with some of Amber's specialists. The metabolic geneticists, his nurse practitioner, pulmonary specialist, orthopedic surgeon, cardiologist, palliative care team and the complex coordinated care team were all there.  

Friday we had a meeting to discus the meeting. It was us, the metabolic geneticist, his nurse practitioner and the palliative care team. We didn't discuss anything new and if anything it's only made our decision making harder.  

There's a lot to it so I'll keep you all focused by throwing some pictures in.

Here's a great one I forgot to put in yesterday! She's a low fat cow :)

First of all I'll start with the chest expansion surgery. She can not have it. Which is fine with us because we had already decided against it. It would be too much of a shock to her system and it would be too long/painful of a recovery. 

Second is the heart. This is a tough one. She definitely needs heart surgery. However it would be open heart surgery and they are very concerned that her lungs would not be able to handle the procedure. On top of it I-Cell babies have a lot of issues with intubation and while she did really well last time there is no guarantee that she'll do well again since she has shown some progression in the disease. The risk of death is very high but we know her quality of life will go down greatly without it and her life span will be even shorter. We're still very undecided about it, not great seeing how we need to do it sooner than later. 

I believe that's it for surgeries. 

This photo melts my heart, he's such a great daddy!!

Treatment. 

This is a tough one. I think I've mentioned before that there is no cure for I-Cell and really no treatment either. The Dr's are still counseling us towards a stem cell transplant (either a donor cord blood or bone marrow), but there really isn't much information on it. They've seen the progression of the disease really slow down, especially with the heart. The down side is the areas that are already affected in her will not change, the progression may slow down but they will always be the way they are and will continue to be issues for her.  What this means for Amber is if she gets it she would probably grow a little more this would be great because it would put some space between her lungs and stomach and she would also fit equipment better. The major down side is the transplant wouldn't change whats already bad with her  lungs and heart and they would not be able to handle a bigger body. However if we don't do the heart surgery her body would not be able to handle the intensity of the transplant, even without it it might be too much for her. 

For other treatment; if we don't do the heart surgery it would be more medication as she gets worse. The palliative care teams seems very confidant in what they can do for her because they've worked with another family who has two I-cell kids. 

She's so curious about everything these days!

So, if you're a little lost by now don't worry! I'm not sure how helpful the meeting was. I don't know what I was expecting since I know by now that they'll never give us a straight answer on what we should do for her. We're kind of stuck in a loop now and here's how it goes;

Her heart needs fixing but her lungs can't handle it,

Her lungs need fixing but her heart can't handle it,

The transplant might work but everything needs fixing before for it to work best 

and that starts us back to the beginning!

They have offered to send us to a hospital in Minnesota and PA who have seen more I-Cell patients and have done treatment/surgeries with them to get a second opinion on what would work best with Amber. We aren't sure if we'll do it. It's also a hard decision because it's a lot of traveling during flu/cold season which is not really the greatest time of the year to travel but if we want someone else's opinion especially on  the heart surgery we have to do it pretty much now. 

I was really hoping that after this meeting we would be set in a direction that we want to go in terms of surgical interventions or not but I think we're actually more confused! 

In other new news her geneticist cleaned out her ears and discovered that it was an ear infection that was causing her sickness and not a reaction to the MMR vaccine! So she's on antibiotics and seems to recovering; her fever is gone but she's still acting off. The other crappy news is her liver is even bigger, it's doubled in size in a little under a month. We aren't sure if this is just the progression of I-Cell or if it's a build up of blood because her heart is working so hard....I'm not sure which would suck more. The only good news is she's not showing signs of any serious liver issues, her skin and eyes are still a good color. 

I think that's all...  This was supposed to get out for today (Tuesday) but I think it will be out for Thursday, I'm not very good at multitasking these days!