Local & State Headlines

Lee County boy to receive transplant

• Doctors found a small intestine donor for Easton Blanchard Monday.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — The news that a Lee County boy had been waiting for arrived at 4:30 a.m. Monday morning.

By 7:15 p.m., Easton Blanchard was taken in for surgery at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pa., where he’ll receive a transplanted small intestine in a procedure likely to take 8-10 hours, said his aunt, Stephanie Blanchard.

Easton, who turns 9 on Wednesday, has been on a list for an organ transplant since January. He was born with the rare disease, muscular dystrophy with myosin deficiency, and all but a snippet of his small intestine had to be removed during four emergency surgeries he endured last year.

“As far as we know, everything is a 100-percent match,” after Easton was paired with a small intestine from an unknown donor in Arizona, his aunt said.

She and other family members will drive to Pittsburgh today, bringing items such as his wheelchair that could not be loaded on a medical plane that departed Albany around 10:30 a.m. Monday with Easton and his parents, Bryan and Heather Blanchard, aboard.

The plane, a Georgia Medic Flight plane staffed with two pilots and a critical care flight nurse, was provided by Albany businessman Bob Brooks, Stephanie Blanchard said.

Easton’s younger sister, Gracee, and his two grandmothers left Albany by car before the flight and were due in Pittsburgh around 11:15 p.m. Monday, Blanchard said.

In Albany, Easton’s supporters were anxiously waiting to hear from the family.

“He’s in our thoughts and prayers, and we know he’s going to make it,” said Cheryl Hendricks, member of a group called “Easton’s Angels,” and a co-worker of Easton’s grandmother at the Dougherty Clerk of Courts office. “He’s a strong little boy.”

Communicating with his mother through text messages, Blanchard said Easton “wasn’t scared” as he was wheeled into surgery. “He was OK.”

The family actually had planned a trip to the hospital Wednesday for a biopsy on his liver, then received the news Monday that a transplant match had been found.

Lee County sheriff’s deputies escorted Easton and family from his home to the airport, where personnel cleared the way for the boy and his parents to board the plane, which was held up briefly due to rain.

After the procedure, Easton will be monitored to be sure his body accepts the transplant, and “there’s always the possibility of complications,” she said.

Since being accepted on the transplant list, the family has tried to raise thousands of dollars to afford to stay with Easton in Pittsburg, where he may need to be for 6 months or more while his body adjusts to the new intestine, she said.

Easton plants to be out of the hospital soon.

“He said he was going to get up and start moving as soon as hcould so he could get back home,” she said.

Easton’s mother is posting updates about the surgery and will soon connect a webcam for him at www.caringbridge.org, a Web site that connects family members during critical illness, Blanchard said. The family also is regularly updating their Myspace pages, she said.

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