On Tuesday, May 29th, Stephanie Pincheon, a mother of three boys from Voorheesville, met her own mother at a halfway point to pick up her son Jimmy, 12, who had spent Memorial Day weekend at his grandmother’s.
When Pincheon first saw her son that day, he seemed playful and in good spirits as usual. However, Jimmy wears glasses occasionally, and when she asked him to take them off, she noticed the whites of his eyes were a strange yellow color. Slightly alarmed, Pincheon asked if Jimmy or Grandma had noticed them throughout the weekend, but neither of them had.
Although she didn’t think the strange color of her son’s eyes was anything too serious, she still took him to Albany Medical Center.
I figured with him being there for the entire weekend and mowing the lawn and what not, he probably just had an allergy and needed some eye drops, she said.
However, doctors at Albany Med suspected there was a bigger problem. At first, Jimmy had only shown small signs of jaundice, the yellowing of skin and eyes due to high levels of bile in the blood, yet by Thursday, according to Pincheon, his skin was almost fluorescent yellow in color.
After several blood tests, they concluded that he had liver failure. Though they didn’t know exactly why Jimmy’s liver was failing, they suspected he had contracted a virus, such as Hepatitis B or C, which can cause liver failure.
Yet Jimmy didn’t test positive for any of these, and his INR, a measurement of how long it takes a patient’s blood to clot, was off the charts.
Whatever the cause was, Jimmy’s liver was failing, and he needed to be transferred to Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City immediately, where more resources could treat his condition.
Nearly two months later, still a patient at Mt. Sinai, Jimmy, who friends describe as loyal, cheerful, and funny, is supposed to be attending seventh grade at Voorheesville Middle School this fall. However, his situation is unique, for better or for worse. According to Pincheon, Jimmy is not well enough to live outside the hospital, but he is also not sick enough to qualify for a liver transplant, because there are patients who are sicker than he and further up on the donor list.
Dr. Cary Qualia, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Albany Medical Center, talked about liver failure.
`Sicker patients with more concerning laboratory values (such as the INR) are placed higher on the list, and become the most likely patients to receive livers from the donor pool,` he said.
Since Jimmy is too small to accept an entire adult-sized liver, Qualia said Jimmy may be a candidate for a split liver transplant, where a portion of an adult liver is transplanted. A living person, typically a parent or sibling, can sometimes serve as the donor.
However, accepting a section of the liver is risky since there is the possibility that the body could reject it. The donor must be in excellent physical and psychological health and must undergo extensive evaluation prior to the surgery.
Pincheon said doctors are hoping Jimmy’s liver will repair itself, and that he won’t need a transplant. Qualia said this could be a possibility for him.
`In some situations, the liver can heal, depending on the underlying disease and how much of it is involved,` he said.
At this point, for Pincheon and her two other sons, Justin, 19, and Jason, 18, dealing with the many unanswered questions about Jimmy’s situation is the most frustrating part.
According to Pincheon, it is uncertain when Jimmy’s condition will improve, and doctors still don’t know what virus caused him to have liver failure.
`With 30 to 40 percent of the cases, they may not know what virus caused it,` said Pincheon. `The whole family could have been somewhere, and it just chose to attack him.`
Pincheon also mentioned how hard it’s been watching her ailing son at a hospital right across from New York City’s Central Park.
`I’ll go outside every once and a while and see the kids playing, and wonder why my son can’t be out playing with them,` she said.
Before Jimmy became sick, Pincheon worked for a local security systems company doing administrative work. However, she is currently not working, due to Jimmy’s location and condition. Pincheon takes the train every week to Mt. Sinai, and then returns home to run errands and check on her son Jason, who is in college and living at home.
She says that Jimmy is never left alone at the hospital, and if she’s not there, Jimmy’s grandmother is.
Diane Ward, a Voorheesville resident who knew about the Pincheons from her son who was in the Marines with Justin Pincheon, reached out to help by starting The Jimmy Pincheon Fund, where donations can be made to help the Pincheons through their crisis.
Ward has a daughter in the second grade, and has been active in the local community as vice president of Blue Star Mothers of America. She didn’t hesitate to help Pincheon when her son told her about Jimmy.
`I was like, what can I do to help you, and just kind of snowballed from there, ` she said.
Ward has already set up a few fundraisers for the Jimmy Pincheon Fund, including a music festival that took place at Voorheesville High School on Saturday, July 14th, and a car wash at Nichols Market on Sunday, July 22nd that raised $1,720 for the Jimmy Pincheon Fund.
Many students and parents in the area have posted comments for Jimmy on CaringBridge.org, a nonprofit organization that offers personalized Web sites for family and friends to keep in touch with a loved one during a significant life event. Ward says the response from the local community has been uplifting.
`Everybody wants to see him better. You can see all the good wishes on the Web site,` she said. `It’s good to see the community has given so much to Jimmy.`
Ward recently visited Jimmy at Mt. Sinai, and says he is in good spirits.
`He always has a smile, he’s really handling this so well,` she said.
To post a comment for Jimmy, visit his Web site at www.caringbridge.org.
To make donations to the Jimmy Pincheon Fund at First Niagara Bank or find out about future fundraisers, contact 495-2096.“