Antibodies 

Posted on by kathleenyago

Today Hana’s chest X-ray looked the same and when they listened to her breathing they thought they heard less breath sounds than yesterday. This is a bit discouraging to me but I suppose it could still take weeks to get her lung expanded. Some of that will depend of how quickly her enlarged heart can decrease in size. It could be that her left lung has been collapsed so long that it will not fill back up with air. Hopefully not.

Hana is doing well today. She has had moments where she is very alert and awake, yet calm. She likes to stretch her arm above her head. They turned off her epinephrine, increased her feeds to 5mL/hour and they took out one of her chest tubes. Her Heparin therapy is going well. They did have to increase her Nitroprusside because her blood pressure has been too high. They are also having a hard time keeping up with all her electrolytes because of all the diuretics Hana is getting. 

Today they got Hana’s antibodies blood work back. Hana has type A blood. It turns out she has lots of antibodies to type B blood so she would not be able to accept a heart from a type B donor.her HLA antibodies came back pretty high. They will test her again in a few weeks because this can be high due to a number of things Hana has had done recently. If her numbers don’t com down then she will have to start a medication to suppress the antibodies. This made me nervous and even feel lightheaded.

We had to take down all the decorations  in Hana’s room because they moved her down the hall. We are going to hang up a green paper cut out Christmas tree to tape on the wall. Hopefully we can get some “ornaments” to tape to it as well.

  

15 thoughts on “Antibodies ”

  3. So good to see her awake and with less stuff! Hang in there Little Hana!
    Adding Wyoming and Nebraska to the list of states praying! Count is up to 28 states and two other countries. ( I missed these two states the other day)
    I’ll send a list of states later today when I get a chance.
    Let me know… if your state isn’t counted … I’ll add it!

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    1. What great holiday season news to hear she is doing so well!1 We keep her in our thoughts and prayers. Marilyn & Floyd Forman

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  4. This is the latest list of states:
    AL, CA, CT, DE, FL, GA, HI, IL, IN, KY, ME, MD, MA, MN, NE, NY, NC, OR, PA, TN, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WV, WY.
    Then Japan and Amsterdam

    And if you have kids of your own and praying for Hana and her parents.. get a blank map of the USA and have the kids color in the states as they get listed. A nice teaching opportunity for your family too. A neat way to SEE how prayers are spreading around the country helping Hana.

    And thank you to all of you out there praying for Hana, Paul and Kathleen.

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  5. A high school friend liked your Facebook post and I stubbled upon your blog. I just want you to know I am praying for Hanna. You have a strong family, and as a mother in hold space for you.

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