ABO Incompatibility

Today, Hana’s transplant listing was revised so that she could receive offers for hearts that are not of compatible blood types. For children under two, this has been a common practice in Canada and Europe. This made me very nervous at first.

Yesterday Hana had to get unexpected blood work done to see how much incompatibility she had with other blood types. Hana has A positive blood, so she could receive a donor heart from an A positive and O positive blood type donor. When they measured her incompatibility with type B blood, back in December, she measured 64. I don’t remember the specifics of “64” but I think it means something like the blood titers/antibodies to type B blood was 64, which is high. She would not be able to accept a type B blood donor heart. When they did the blood work yesterday her titers were down to 4!

UNOS (United Network of Organ Sharing) recently changed their rules for children under two, allowing ABO incompatibility to be considered in their listing. Research has showed that children that received an incompatible donor heart actually did better (it was suggested to me that this is because they are watched more carefully). The cutoff is two because a child’s immune system is not fully developed at this age. So, this means for Hana, that when a donor heart because available, she will not be passed up because she has an incompatible blood type. The reason for her titers to be down to 4, I believe, is because of her IVIG therapy.

So, this is good news! (It still makes me just a little nervous.)

In other news, Hana is doing great. My mom left on Monday morning, we were very sad to see her go. I think Hana considers my mom her favorite playmate. Hana is saying lots and lots of new words and continues to use her sign language. She has been a real delight. We are chugging along and I’m trying not to get weary. It’s good to have something like the Summer Scamper to work towards! Thank you to everyone who has donated!

I also stopped pumping about three weeks ago. It has dramatically changed my quality of life! It also means there is now a finite amount of breast milk for Hana to drink, so hopefully she makes some improvements with drinking cow milk and eating! (Some days are better than others).

Below is another beautiful image from Anne Daiva.

Here are some more images of Hana (that I took…)

160 days in the hospital, 142 days post-Berlin heart, 134 days on the transplant list.