Appeal for Help: Sick Relative

As most of you are aware, our mother has been battling liver cirrhosis for almost 10 years now.  Recently her health has taken a big decline and continues to deteriorate day by day.  In the past 6 months, she has been admitted to the hospital 6+ times with complications related to her liver failure.  What makes matters worse is that she has many other complications at the same time (including Hernia, Diabetes, Neuropathy, Asthma to name a few) which only further destabilize her health.

With Cirrhosis & Liver failure, water tends to build up in your stomach as your liver is not functioning in a regular capacity.  When the water builds up in your stomach, the doctors have to extract the water, but in our mothers case, they are unable to remove the water due to the hernia sitting right above her belly, which is so tender that they can’t risk accidentally touching the Hernia and having it rupture.  For that reason, they are not able to get into the pockets of fluid to extract the water from her belly.

With that being said, the water simply builds up in her stomach and pushes into her lungs through her diaphragm.  When the water pushes into her lungs, it exacerbates her asthma which then leads to more pain & suffering and ultimately more hospitalization.

We have gotten our mom put on the liver transplant list, but as you all know that is simply a waiting game.  Doctors have suggested we solicit our friends and family for a living donor.  Fortunately the liver can regrow to its original size, so doctors would be able to take a  small piece of a donors liver and put that into our moms liver cavity.  Once transplanted, over time the donated liver will go back to its original size, as will the liver of the actual donor.  So both patient and donor can live a healthy and comfortable life.  However its not as simple as that, for any living donor, there are certain criteria that must be met in order to donate to a patient.  Those include:

1 – The donor should not have any liver issues themselves (liver failure, cirrhosis, hepatitis, drug or alcohol abuse issues to name a few).
2 – The donor should be a specific height and weight range (in moms case, her donor should be no more then 120-130 lbs as she currently weights approximately 100 lbs) and the height should not be more then 5’3’ or 5’4.
3 – The donor should have a specific blood type that is compatible with moms.  (Her blood type is A, so we need A+, A- or O)
4 – The donor needs to be at-least 18 years of age, but no more then 75-80.
5 – The donor would have to go through a thorough examination to ensure they are healthy (physically & emotionally) and able to sustain such an operation.

If you know our family, all of us siblings are way above the height and weight requirement and have been told we would not be candidates for the procedure.  For that reason, we are turning to our friends and family to spread the word in the time of our need.  We know this is asking a lot but if you know our mom, you know what an extremely loving and caring person she is.  She has always been there for everyone and was always the sunshine in our house, and its very sad and frustrating to see her now & to be at a point where we can only stand by on the sideline and see her deteriorate.

We as a family, request anyone in the community that gets this message, even if you do not wish to be considered as a living donor, please forward this message on and please keep our mom in your prayers.

This is the most challenging thing Allah has sent our way, but we are sure with the support of our great friends and family we can at least spread the word and see if anyone can help us.  This is a great deed and we will be eternally greatful for any support that we can get.  As we mentioned, if you are not wanting to be considered as a donor, or do not meet the requirements, please take several minutes out of your schedule and forward this email to your friends, family & co-workers and please keep our mom in your prayers.

You can call us with any questions or if you have any suggestions.  Our contact information is as -Robeena Mohammed (Ruby) – 630-624-1027; Imran Khan – 734-624-5645; Naumaan Khan (Nomi) – 734-752-9486; Usman Khan – 734-642-8134

If you would like to be considered as a donor, all testing would occur in the Metro Detroit area through the Henry Ford system, as our mom is on the transplant list through Henry Ford Main Campus in Downtown Detroit!  The recovery time is about 4 weeks for the donor and all surgery related expenses are covered by the recipients insurance. From what we have been told, the donor should be back to normal within 4-5 weeks and be able to resume their normal life style without any issues.  I am attaching a link as well as several attachments that detail the living liver donation process.  Please review this carefully and if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to call any of us to discuss the case in more detail.

http://www.livingdonorassistance.org/potentialdonors/donoreducation.aspx

Thank you for reading through our entire message & please help spread the word!
Ruby, Numair, Imran, Uzma, Nomi, Noor & Usman 🙂
<http://www.livingdonorassistance.org/potentialdonors/donoreducation.aspx
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