Like many of our parents, Christopher is happy to share his son’s story to raise awareness of the power of organ donation.
Our son Rosco was born on July 24th, 2021, and was jaundiced from the start. He also seemed to want to feed a great deal in comparison to our daughter when she was a newborn.
We raised these concerns with health professionals, but we were told he was fine, he was just a hungry baby. When the health visitor signed him off when he was three weeks old, we were advised that he just had swarthy skin.
When he was eight weeks old, however, our own health visitor came out to see him. We could tell she wasn’t happy, particularly when she asked to hold him, and he let out a loud scream. She advised us to take him straight to A& E which we did.
Rosco was admitted to hospital later that evening and the following day we were told he would have to go to Birmingham for care as our local hospital in Belfast couldn’t provide the care he needed.
At this stage, no-one had told us what they thought might be wrong. One of the doctors in Belfast used to work at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. And after examining Rosco, they phoned a former colleague in Birmingham, and it was decided he should be transferred there for treatment.
So, we travelled to Birmingham on September 26th. And it was the next day that we were first made aware of what doctors believed was wrong with Rosco. They told us that they thought he had biliary atresia and that he would urgently need to undergo a Kasai procedure. It was at that point that we found out about Children’s Liver Disease Foundation and realised that, although biliary atresia was very rare, we were not alone.
The Kasai surgery took place two days later and we were hopeful that this would address the issue but unfortunately, six months later, we were told that it had failed, and he would need a liver transplant.
After 22 months on the list, Rosco received his new liver in July this year and so far everything is going very well. Admittedly it has been tricky trying to juggle family life – we have an eight-year-old daughter – around Rosco’s problems but we try our best. And we are lucky that Rosco’s main consultant actually runs a clinic in the Royal Children’s hospital here in Belfast. He flies over every few months so that has helped. Now all his check-ups take place in Belfast, and we just have to return to Birmingham in a year’s time for his one-year post transplant review.
When we look at our son now, there is no doubt that organ donation is a fabulous gift to those in need and we can’t thank Rosco’s donor and their family enough for giving him a second chance at life.
