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London, United Kingdom
Welcome to Shay's story and thank you for taking the time to find out how Shay is doing. It is a place to share our hopes, sadness and the happy times that our little man has. Shay in April 2008 was diagnosed with Pearson's Syndrome a Mitochondrial disease with no cure. Pearson syndrome is very rare, less than a hundred cases have been reported worldwide. It characteristically present in early infancy with pallor, failure to thrive, pancytopenia and diarrhoea. Additional manifestations often include progressive external ophthalmoplegia, proximal myopathy with weakness, and neurologic disturbances. Multiple organ involvement is quite variable. Most infants die before age 3, often due to unremitting metabolic acidosis, infection, or liver failure. Those few individuals who can be medically supported through infancy may experience a full recovery of marrow and pancreatic function. These children eventually undergo a transformation from Pearson's syndrome to Kearns-Sayre syndrome with the development of ptosis, incoordination, mental retardation and episodic coma. Life as we use to know it I cannot remember. We have to live in hope that a miracle will happen for our son.

Wednesday 20 July 2011

Pre-planned hospital visit.

After weeks of deliberation and worry, we decided to let Shay have his port removed. Shay went in on Tuesday as he had to have an ECG and bloods taken to make sure that he was well enough medically for the operation to go ahead.
Even on the way to GOSH it was 50/50 in our minds whether to go ahead with the operation. After talking to his doctors it was decided the best course of action was to have it removed. This was because he no longer needs it for red cell transfusions and also they are seeing alot more ports becoming infected and failing. They put it to us that they would prefer Shay to have the port removed in a controlled environment like GOSH, rather than him being rushed in as an emergency case. So the removal of the port was in place plus a lumbar puncture. Shay was slightly embarrassed when he had to put the hospital gown on, he did insist on keeping his boxer shorts on. For any parent it is the most heartbreaking thing to see your child put under general anesthetic, but for us it was even worse. Working on a patient with Mitochondrial disease is extremely risky and shouldn't be undertaken unless it is absolutely necessary. The entire procedure we were told would take around 40 minutes to complete. After the longest ever 40 minutes we started clock watching, an hour went by and we really started to worry. Worrying never gets us anywhere as we were called down to theatre just past the hour. Prior to Shay going under they wanted to also take a tissue biopsy which we agreed to. The tissue biopsy was taken from the port site so he didn't have this as an extra wound on his already marked body. The biopsy will tell us so much about Shay. It will take a very long six months for the results to filter back. We know Shay has Pearson's but this will tell us which complexes are affected; whether it will or is morphing into 'Kearnes Sayre Syndrome' amongst a whole lot of other information. Also it will quite possibly tell us what is happening with his legs as this is one area he always complains of being in pain. It's going to be the longest wait ever.
Shay is now back home and is recovering slowly. He misses his port as it is something he has got use to for two years and Shay will miss showing his port of to everyone that he meets.
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