Leslie's Liver Transplant
Hi...my BFF needs a liver transplant !!
Leslie was born with a liver defect called Benign Recurrent Cholestasis. She underwent four different surgeries as a baby/toddler. With this disease, she became fatigued, jaundice, itchy, nausea, and lost weight. The doctor told her she may outgrow it someday . The year her son, Daniel, was born (28 years ago) was the last time she had one of these episodes. All her life, when having bloodwork done, her liver enzymes would always be slightly out of range. Two years ago, her alkaline phosphate level was very high and they checked her for bone cancer. All came back clear. Fast forward to this past March. She had bloodwork done and her alkaline phosphate had almost doubled . She had been feeling very fatigued but she thought it was from getting the vaccine. At that time, her primary care doctor ordered a ultrasound of her liver, which came back showing a mass in her upper right quadrant. Her doctor then ordered a MRI to confirm the mass and it did just that. In May, she had a biopsy of the mass and it came back positive for cancer. If cancer was the only trouble, they would do a resection (surgery) and remove tumor and be done but her biopsy showed 2 or 3 other spots that could possibly become cancer and her liver showed scarring (cirrhosis) from all her years of liver disease. Leslie & Jim traveled to Duke Cancer Institute in May and met with her Liver transplant team to undergo more tests and see what they recommended and it was decided that a new liver could give her another 20-30 years of life, which she desperately wants . Right now for the most part Leslie feels good. Some days. she is tired but overall her health is good. For that reason she will be having a procedure done in June that will kill the tumor. It’s an outpatient procedure and she can return to work after a couple days of rest. They will scan her in 3 months to be sure nothing has come back and for any new signs of cancer. At this time, she is being put on the waiting list for a new liver, which she will not get till after 6 months ( she explained this on her timeline about her MELD score). Duke thinks she may get a liver transplant in the beginning of 2022.
I wanted to start this GoFundMe for Leslie & her family. They have Blue Cross & Blue Shield but the bills from the procedures she already had to have done have already started coming in and the bill for her transplant will be approximately 180,000 that they will be responsible for. After the transplant, she will be in the hospital for 7-10 days. When she is released, she will have to stay living locally for a month because she will have 2-3 appointments a week to check on her progress. She will be out of work for 3-6 months, which will be very hard on her & her family, not just because of the income but she will miss caring for her clients who she adores. Jim has some family leave/vacation days, he will be able to use but he may exceed some. All money donated will help to pay the medical costs and is very much appreciated.
