Sir Oliver Update

Jaisal's 3-year Liverversary was on December 12! I can't believe it's been three years since little man started his second life and Sir Oliver joined our family.

Post-transplant life is not without its bumps and it seems like we're always balancing something with little man's health, BUT far and away the news from his annual appointment was that Jaisal and Sir Oliver are doing extremely well.

All of Jaisal's labs came back perfect, as did his ultrasound. Here is just watching a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while the tech takes some pictures of his livers. These ultrasounds used to be so hard. Trying to keep him still and not crying. He's such a big boy, just contentedly laying there.

Also look at his beautiful belly! It's so flat and perfect. No fluid accumulation and only a slightly large liver for him that he'll continue to grow into.

Some stats:

• Jaisal is nearly 75th percentile for height. The kid who had basically stopped growing at one point in his early life now frequently receives comments about being tall for his age!

• He's also gone on a weight gain binge and is over 37 pounds now! That's solid 50th percentile. His weight gain had been pretty non-existent for the past year and then in the past 3 months, he's slowly but surely been gaining. We had a meal earlier this week, where no exaggeration, Jaisal ate 3 times as much as I did. He's 4! This does not bode well for our budget, but I am happy that perhaps his pants will stop falling off of him when he runs, no matter how much I tighten the internal adjustments on his pants.

• Jaisal only takes 2 prescription medications and we're working on a novel way to get rid of one of those medications. 

• He only has to get labs every 3 months and go into liver clinic once a year! If all looks well at clinic next year, we may start to even try to reduce to his main immune suppressant to barely measurable levels or, in a totally awesome world, get enrolled in a study to see if he can be weaned from this life-saving but toxic drug entirely.

• We've had no inpatient stays in the hospital in the last year. Our frequent flier status on the floor is officially relinquished, though we are still too familiar to the check-in clerks on the outpatient and lab side.

• Going to school 5 days a week in a class of 30 kids and then going to after care with a larger and different set of kids hasn't resulted in Jaisal having to stay home with illness more than any other kid. He does manage to have a persistent cough all winter, but overall it's amazing what his body is doing.

• I still look at him sometimes and marvel at the whites of his eyes. 

And while it's buried at the end of a long post, we never ever, but particularly on this day, forget that we are so lucky to have the Vogels in our lives. None of this would be possible without them.