Hungry Horse baby receives new liver

The Daily Inter Lake

Tami and Dave Peterson of Hungry Horse thank God and the family of an anonymous donor for their infant Reid Morgan's functioning liver.

Without it, the Petersons faced the prospect of losing the baby they conceived after almost a decade of hoping.

"Everything has just been a miracle," Tami said in a telephone interview Wednesday from Seattle.

Their 4-month-old infant received a transplanted liver Friday, Jan. 5, at Children's Hospital in Seattle. Even before the surgeon finished, the liver jumped into action.

It was a joyful climax to a journey that began when Tami found out she was pregnant after nearly 10 years of waiting and praying.

Tami said she and her husband had accepted that they would remain childless after eight years of trying. Then two years later, she became sick with what she thought was the flu.

To their surprise, the couple learned that Tami was at long-last pregnant. She endured a difficult pregnancy.

"I was throwing up all nine months," she said with a laugh.

Reid was born Aug. 26 at North Valley Hospital. The couple and their physician thought that Reid's jaundice would disappear within a few weeks.

But when they took the baby to Missoula for surgery to correct a hernia, a specialist decided to do more testing, because, at 8 weeks, Reid's jaundice hadn't resolved. After more tests and exploratory surgery in Seattle, they learned about biliary atresia.

A congenital condition, biliary atresia results when the bile ducts of the liver develop abnormally during pregnancy. Specialists discovered that Reid's liver was too badly damaged from the defect to benefit from corrective surgery.

Tami said that the infant was placed on the national transplant list in November. To qualify, the family had to commit to flying Reid to Seattle within six hours, a feat not possible with commercial flight schedules.

To help out, friends and family set up funds for financial and flight assistance at Glacier Bank or, for tax-deductible donations, through Hungry Horse Chapel or All Nations Fellowship in Columbia Falls.

Dave, part owner of Top Notch Log Homes, and Tami, a homemaker, have no health insurance. Even though Reid qualified for assistance from Seattle Children's Hospital, the family faces large expenses, including $1,000 to pay for the Edwards jet flight to Seattle.

On Thursday, Jan. 4, the couple got "the call" telling them that a donor was available. Within three hours, tests revealed that the liver was a match.

At 11 p.m., the couple and Reid were airborne. The family arrived at about 1 a.m. Friday in Seattle in plenty of time for pre-operative testing. Dave and Tami took turns holding Reid before the surgery.

He was not in good spirits after fasting for eight hours.

"They gave him a quick little something that let us enjoy him before going so he wasn't fussing as much," Dave wrote in Reid's baby blog, which the family posted on the Internet.

After 12 hours of surgery interspersed with updates, the family got the good news that the operation was a success. The little boy woke up at about 10 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 6, the day after surgery.

"Mom and I both cried when we saw his white little eyes - the yellow is gone," Dave wrote.

On Tuesday, Reid had improved enough to move out of the intensive-care unit. He had the drain tubes removed from his stomach and was relaxing in his mother's arms.

"Everybody here is smiling a lot," according to the blog.

Tami said that the hospital might discharge Reid next week. She said he was recovering quickly.

Thanks to his donor, Reid has lost his yellow tinge. On Wednesday, his bilirubin - a pigment found in bile and blood - count was normal.

Now Tami and Dave begin learning about their next journey into postoperative care. The gift of life from a transplant comes with a rigorous maintenance responsibility.

"It's a lifetime of continuous medications," Tami said.

For more details about Reid's progress, consult Reid's baby blog on the Internet at www.reidpeterson.blogspot.com. People who want to donate should send checks or money orders, payable to Reid Peterson, to P.O. Box 190902, Hungry Horse, MT 59919.

For a tax-deductible contribution, make a donation to either of these churches with a note stating the gift designation. Those addresses are: Hungry Horse Chapel, P.O. Box 190038, Hungry Horse, MT 59919, or All Nations Fellowship, P.O. Box 2870, Columbia Falls, MT 59912.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.