BOSTON -- Boston Bruins hockey star Terry O'Reilly Wednesday said his 4-month-old son may not need a liver transplant, but said the boy suffers from a disease that could require a new organ.
O'Reilly, at a news conference where half the team turned out in support, said a newspaper article that said he was pleading for an immediate donor was overstated, although his son's disease is serious.
The boy, Evan, has biliary atresia, the same illness that affected Jamie Fiske of Bridgewater, who received a liver transplant a year ago that saved her life.
O'Reilly's doctor, Lucian Leape, said at a news conference at Boston Floating and Children's Hospital that 'Evan has definitely improved but it is too soon to say if the operation has been a success.'
Evan was operated on for the disease in a procedure Leape said is successful in 25 percent of the cases. In the other 75 percent, there is complete liver failure and the children need transplants.
'We think he is doing well. He could be the one in four who makes it all the say,' Leape said.
Dr. Murray Feingold, chief of birth defects at the hospital, said Evan and Jamie Fiske were at the same stage at their ages, 'but there is no way to tell if they will follow the same course.'
O'Reilly said he and his wife, Lourdes, met with the Fiskes recently and said 'they are wonderful people. They are still very much involved in helping other people. You'd think they'd just want to go home and rest after what they went through.'
'It's just wait and see, day to day, week to week,' he said.
He said 'going to practice is a release to be able to skate. We've got a close team.'
His wife said 'it's been a trying six weeks for us,' since the boy's first operation. 'You wake up in the morning and check his color and hope he's happy all day.'
She said if Evan does need a new liver, the O'Reilly's, like the Fiskes, will make a public appeal instead of relying on long waiting lists.
'Evan's doctors told me that some children like Evan have lasted up to two and one-half years without a transplant,' O'Reilly said earlier. 'But there are no guarantees that he can make it until there's a donor available.'
Jamie Fiske, now a healthy 2-year-old, received the liver of a brain-dead Utah baby whose parents donated the organ after hearing of Fiske's appeal.
Evan is a patient at New England Medical Center's Floating Hospital. The hospital is one of four in Boston preparing to conduct transplants under a joint program, but still need state approval.
The hospital could seek an emergency waiver if Evan is ready for the operation and a donor is available before approval for the program is given.
