Uh-oh. This isn't good

Hi all. Hudson had a fantastic day on Friday, his first really good full day since the transplant as he seemed completely recovered from the surgery itself and is now just dealing with the effects of balancing the medication. Today, however, his blood work had some discouraging news for us.

His creatinine (which shows kidney function) increased from .3 (amazing!) to .5 over two days. A creatinine of .5 is still really really good, but the change is really dramatic in such a short period and is unexpected if there are no complications. Essentially, there are a few things that could cause such an increase: dehydration, levels of his anti-rejection medication that are too high, or beginning stages of kidney rejection. His fluid level intake that we measure leads us to rule out dehydration and on first glance, the level of the medication in his blood is far too low to be causing these problems. Obviously this is not good for Hudson. Please pray for this as we will be rechecking his blood early tomorrow morning. If the creatinine remains high, we will be doing a series of blood tests on Monday to once again determine if we can give him lower doses of the medicine more often during the day to keep from spikes that could cause this problem with creatinine. We will also be doing an ultrasound on Hudson's kidney and bladder to make sure there are no obstructions and that everything is draining well and there is a likelihood he will need a kidney biopsy to make sure the body is not rejecting the new kidney. This would certainly mean that Hudson would be re-admitted to the hospital for a time, which is always difficult on our whole family. Please pray that his blood work would come back well tomorrow and that this problem would be solved.

There is another problem, though, that is also very disturbing. Hudson has always had a very small residual degree of a condition called clonus, which is involuntary twitching in his feet and ankles that happens after stretching out. Clonus can be indicative of all kinds of issues, but his condition had decreased over time almost to where it was non-existent and we were not concerned about it. However, since the surgery, it has progressively grown worse, much worse, and is now not only highly noticeable but even prohibitive of him doing simple things like standing while supported or pushing off with his feet while he is on the floor. His leg will twitch uncontrollably until Kristi or I hold it still. This is terribly difficult for us to experience as it seems uncomfortable and confusing for Hudson and we really don't know what to do about it. All we can think of is that this is another side effect from his medication which can cause tremors in 40% of patients, though our doctors have never seen the medication effect the legs, only the hands. Hudson also has a runny nose now, which may be a sign of him trying to fight off some kind of virus.

Please pray for us as we are all quite exhausted and concerned for our son. None of these developments are good, in fact they are all potentially devastating in different forms. We are trying very hard to just trust in God's provision and not be discouraged, but this is proving to be very difficult.

Donny