I know I was awfully cryptic this morning, so here are a few more details about what is going on with Kendall right now.
Kendall still has pneumonia and breathing is more of a struggle for him now. He has a staph infection and the active CMV that the doctors are trying to keep under control and treat. He is still not eating well. But the most concerning thing at the moment is his liver. He has numbers that normally should be in the 20’s that skyrocketed to the 900’s last night. Kendall has developed severe ascites (fluid in the abdominal cavity) in the last 36 hours and has a good deal of pain now on his right side as well as the previous pain on his left. We got the results tonight from his liver biopsy and confirmed that he does in fact have VOD (when his numbers got better on Sunday they had told me it wasn’t VOD/SOS, but only a biopsy could confirm or disprove for certain). They are starting treatment immediately. In addition, Kendall was also diagnosed today with encephalopathy, which causes a lot of confusion, delusions, and hallucinations, and was getting progressively worse throughout the day. He’s not very aware of what is going on around him at the moment.
I left the hospital around 7:00 p.m. after we got the biopsy results, but for now Kendall is on one-on-one (where someone is in the room with him 24/7). There is a good chance he will be moved to ICU during the night, and he may need to be put on a ventilator. In addition to the fluid in his lungs from the pneumonia, encephalopathy can also make it hard for him to breathe, and they want to be prepared.
So that’s where things are today. I’ll be back up at the hospital tomorrow morning and will try to keep this page updated.
(I’ve gone back and forth on if I should post that photo of Kendall since this was one I didn’t have his specific permission to this time. Since it’s still bothering me I will take it down.)