Web posted
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Local Youth gets liver transplant and a new lease on life
|
Jacob Eckerman shows his liver transplant scar.
|
Jacob Eckerman was a normal, active, soccer playing 12-year-old boy a year ago. Today Jake, now 13, is working his way back to that normal life after a very traumatic six months of medical procedures that culminated with a liver transplant. “He went from being a normal funny little dude that loved to play soccer, to being very sick in a real short period of time, and it scared the you-know-what out of us, because he became so sick so fast. We took him in thinking he might have an appendix problem like his brother did, but soon learned that he was in liver failure and our insurance quickly maxed out,” explained Jacob’s father Keith.
|
Michelle, Kyle, Keith and Jacob Eckerman, happy to be home after Jacob's successful liver transplant.
|
The community mobilized and planned a fund raising event last May, but before the event happened, Jacob took a turn for the worse and had to be medivaced to Seattle Children’s Hospital, “He was put in the intensive care unit for a week where they had to clean his blood due to the liver failure and the toxins that were making him even more sick, then once he was stabilized they were able to put him on the transplant list for a liver, we didn’t have the exact diagnosis at that point but they knew his liver was done and that a transplant would be necessary for him to survive,” said Jacob’s mother Michelle.
Miraculously only a few days later an adult liver did become available, “We don’t know much about the circumstances of how the liver became available and would like to look into that so we could express our appreciation, but Jacob received half or what is called a cut liver. He received the liver on May 20th and immediately started having complications and had to go back into surgery three times during the first two days and then was in a drug induced coma for a week. His body wanted to fight the transplanted liver so he had a long bumpy road and many rejection issues to deal with and that was why our stay ended up being so lengthy. Usually a transplant doesn’t require nearly the hospital time that we went through,” said Michelle.
Finally after an arduous recovery period and help from the Ronald McDonald Center the Eckerman’s returned to Soldotna a week before school started. “Jake started right back in school and was a little tired in the beginning but is doing great now and is even participating in gym and his strength and stamina is getting better every day and it’s just great having him home, you just never realize how precious life is until you go through something like this, you may think you do, but going through this changes your perspective and appreciation of life greatly,” added Michelle.
The Eckerman’s are also grateful for all the prayers and community support they received during their ordeal, “I don’t even know how to begin to thank everybody for their generosity it was truly unbelievable,” said Keith, “You can imagine how intense the expenses were, we say Jake’s a million dollar kid, but amazingly even after maxing out our insurance in just three days, with all the fund raising efforts we came out even. We have our boy and no debt, and that’s unbelievable, like a real miracle, so I want to take this opportunity on behalf of the Eckerman family to thank everybody, and I truly just don’t know what to say!”
After Jake’s experience the Eckerman’s encourage all licensed drivers to become part of the organ donors program, “We both work at the hospital so we’ve always known that it was important to be a donor, and when our older son Kyle turned 16 he realized it was important too and had it put on his drivers license. Now we truly know how important it really is to be a donor, disease is a part of life, and you just never know who you may be helping and one day it might even be you that is receiving an organ and until you’re on the receiving end you just can’t appreciate how important that gift of life truly is,” concluded Jacob’s mother Michelle.
|
Dispatch
