had the transplants not been shut down by the covid 19 out break mr hudson would be about 6 weeks out from having his kidney transplant
as it is he is now 5 weeks out from getting his kidney transplant on july 7th
as of now the cota fund has raised enough money to fly his living donor from the east coast to los angeles so she can arrive without a lot of exposure to the coronavirus
i wish to thank those of you who donated to make that happen
there is now enough funds to help pay for some of the other noncovered expenses associated with his transplant
this last week we got the news
it seems its always something
that mr hudson has developed antibodies that can attack any kidney that he gets
he didnt have them before but now he does
why did he get them
he hasnt had any blood products or blood
they think he probably got the antibodies from some viral or bacterial infection he had
if he hadnt developed these antibodies then he wouldnt have to do the treatments i mention below
the hope was he was going to be able to escape these extra treatments pretransplant
it not unusual though for kidney transplants to have to do these extra treatments
he was not expected to have to do them
it would make his long term treatment easier on him
he now will have to take 3 pills every day long term instead of two
so
today he goes down to cedars sinai to be admitted
he gets a covid 19 nasal swab to make sure he doesnt have it
he then gets an iv started for a 12 hour infusion of two drugs
only one parent can stay with him
we cant visit him at all
only his mom will be with him for the 24 hour admission
his dad will be staying at a nearby hotel
one of the drugs is called rituximab
its commonly used to treat lymphoma and other diseases
it works by binding to the white cells to stop antibody production
in his case its the antibody against the donors kidney
this is the same drug a relative received recently for lymphoma
another drug is called ivig or intravenous immunoglobulin
it is basically pooled antibodies that will attack any foreign antigens in his body
its interesting that several years ago they were using this in an alzheimers disease treatment study
the antibodies were thought to bind to something that slowed down alzheimers
probably amyloid or tau protein
i wasnt accepted in the study since i wasnt far enough along in my disease
so
its the same one that hudson will be getting today
then
in two weeks he does this again then does it again every week until his transplant for a total of 4 times
it does lower his immune system so that now he is more susceptible to infection
so we have to be extra careful to prevent any exposures
wearing masks and washing hands and limiting any outside exposures
then after these are all done he does his transplant the following week
we are getting close
you can access the childrens organ transplant association fund for hudsons transplant
at this link
here is his facebook page a kidney for hudson
the organicgreen doctor
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