Readers offer their own livers to save Lucas Fox of Tatamy

[Clark]

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/easton/index.ssf/2014/12/readers_offer_their_own_livers.html

Readers offer their own livers to save Lucas Fox of Tatamy
By Kelly Huth

I always knew our readers had heart. But judging from the response after the story on efforts to save Lucas Fox, I had no idea just how much.

After the story published online Friday, emails from Lehighvalleylive.com and The Express-Times readers came in with offers to donate a portion of their own liver to help this nine-month-old boy. But it wasn't just the local community. Readers in Brooklyn, New York and all the way to Massachusetts were writing in to give a portion of their own liver to Lucas.

Lucas Fox, of Tatamy, has biliary atresia. It's a condition that prevents bile from exiting his liver. It's one of many obstacles the young fighter has encountered in his life that have kept him in and out of hospitals and placed him on the transplant list.

Lucas' grandmother, Patty Brunell, of Bangor, started a Facebook group, Prayers for Baby Lucas months ago to find a living donor who could donate a portion of an adult liver. The Brunells wrote a letter as part of The Express-Times' Dear Santa program for Lucas to find a match for Christmas.

Lucas' mother, Amber Brunell (Fox), a Bangor Area High School graduate, and Josh Fox, a Nazareth Area High School graduate are waiting to find a match to save their son.

After Friday's story, Lucas was flown to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Amber Brunell says he wasn't sleeping well Thursday, had difficulty breathing Friday and screamed in pain. Saturday he wasn't very responsive, she says. But Sunday, after getting medicine and lots of liquid, Lucas is doing better and even getting some sleep. His setback may bump him up on the liver transplant list to the highest point a baby with ongoing liver disease can go, Amber Brunell says. But it may keep him in the hospital now until his liver comes.

When she learned of the response from readers, Amber Brunell says she was "in shock."

"I'm so happy that everyone's trying to help. It was something we never expected would happen to this little boy. Then it happens and so many people want to help," she says.

Finding a match

Peter Burkhardt, of Shoemakersville, Pa., is a 29-year-old father of a baby boy 16 days older than Lucas. Burkhardt is a 2003 Whitehall graduate serving with the National Guard in Easton. He inquired about donating a portion of his liver after hearing about Lucas' fight.

"My Christmas wish would be for him to have a donor lined up," he says.

"I'm in decent shape. I'm not a huge size. I may be a prime candidate."

For Burkhardt, the pull to donate an organ for a stranger lies in the fact that Lucas is so close in age to his own son and he and his wife can't imagine what it would be like to be in the Fox's situation.

"I feel bad for him. He's had a rough nine months," Burkhardt says.

The numbers are rising

Patty Brunell wrote late Saturday night, "I can not tell you the amount of outpour(ing) the baby Lucas site has received. And the amount of people asking for paperwork to be a donor is incredible."

The Prayers for Baby Lucas Facebook page that numbered in the 700 range last week, now stands at more than 2,600. The donations on the family's gofundme.com page have doubled. "It is amazing how many people are praying and thinking about Lucas," Patty Brunell writes.

Debbie Edmondson, a Nazareth mother of two, emailed after the story ran to figure out if she could be a match.

Edmondson says when she read about someone so close to Nazareth, she wanted to reach out. "He's just a little boy trying to fight. I want to be able to help, help that baby if I can," she says.

Edmondson has the paperwork in hand, and plans to file Monday.

Even if she's not a match for Lucas, but learns she qualifies to help another local baby in need, Edmondson would consider donating.

Kassandra Pond, a mother of two from Allentown, says as soon as she saw Lucas' smile in the photograph accompanying the story, she told her husband she was emailing to be a potential donor.

"My heart felt for him," Pond says and adds she's not doing it for attention or any thanks.

"Like I told his grandmother, I hope I can make his Christmas wish come true," Pond says.

A Christmas wish

According to Patty Brunell, the ideal candidate would be someone with O-positive blood type, aged 21-40, in good health and of a smaller build. The donated liver would grow to size with an infant recipient, while the adult's would still function, according to Leo Heitlinger, a pediatric gastroenterologist at St. Luke's Hospital. Heitlinger is not currently treating Lucas.

At 73-years-old, Joellyn Meehan, of Bethlehem, says she's "three strikes and I'm out." She's not the blood type, out of the age range and says 'I'm not real little either.'

Still she's inquired about paperwork on the off chance she can help in some way.

"God said, 'Jo, volunteer,'" Meehan says.

"I've been on donor lists for everything – all my life," Meehan says, her voice breaking. "I just don't want to go out without helping someone. That's always been my wish."

Edmondson, Burkhardt, Pond and Meehan all know time is of the essence, which is why they've reached out for paperwork to start the process to see if they can save Lucas.

"I figure if they actually knew on Christmas morning, 'Hey, we have a donor lined up – the surgery's in a couple of weeks' – that would be a great present," Burkhardt says. "I can't imagine with my son, just not knowing.