The hope that Megan Leverrier’s dad Jaimie might be able to be a liver donor for her is no longer a possibility.
The Leverrier family was informed Thursday at Toronto Sick Children’s Hospital that a live donor will not work for four-year-old Megan, who has a rare tumour attached to her liver.
“They’re on the donor list and apparently Megan’s been bumped up to one of the top ones,” said Megan’s aunt Tracey Nickolson on Friday. “Now it’s a waiting game to try and keep her healthy. It could come at any time.”
Nickolson said the importance of people registering as organ donors has now become paramount for the family, as a transplant appears to be Megan’s best hope.
Megan’s parents, Michelle and Jaimie, her two-year-old brother Gavin and her grandparents are now surmising they could be in Toronto for months.
“We are going to be in Toronto for a very long time and have a tough road ahead of us,” wrote Michelle and Jaimie on the Miracle for Megan Facebook page.
Megan is now on a morphine drip for pain and is no longer permitted to leave her hospital room. Doctors are trying to shrink the tumour which Nickolson describes as like a beach ball inside the little girl’s abdomen.
The good news, said Nickolson, came from a biopsy done earlier in the week, that showed the cancer hasn’t spread.
“The nodules came back without cancer. That’s why they’re still considering a transplant.”
Along with the many fundraisers that people have been organizing for the family, Nickolson now has Miracle for Megan bracelets that will be sold for $5 each at some area businesses.
Locations will be updated on the Miracle for Megan Facebook page, www.facebook.com/meganleverrier. Current ones include, in Sorrento, Munro’s Sorrento IDA, Loonie on the Lake dollar store, Sorrento Elementary, Carlin Elementary Middle School, Steamers Coffee House, Lighthouse Market, Shuswap Fitness. In Salmon Arm on Monday, bracelets will be available at the Salmon Arm Observer, with other locations to be announced soon.
