Butler teen doing better
PITTSBURGH — Adam Snow was taken off his ventilator Monday.
His family says that he is much better and UPMC Children's Hospital reports Adam is officially considered in critical but stable condition.
The 14-year-old Butler boy was given four days to live Friday by doctors at UPMC Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh where Adam had been diagnosed with liver failure about two weeks earlier.
As his mother, Linda Snow, owner of Smith's The Main Street Florists in Butler, was being prepared for a partial liver transplant to her son, a liver was donated that was a 100 percent match for Adam.
The Snow family says Adam, who is in ninth grade at Butler Intermediate High School, began feeling ill the week of Oct. 15. The illness was thought to be a bad cold or the flu, so he went to the family doctor, received medicine and took it easy, not going to football practice that Friday. An avid outdoorsman, he did go hunting on Oct. 20.
On Oct. 23, he felt worse and Linda said the whites of Adam's eyes appeared a bit jaundiced or yellow, so she took him back to the doctor. After a blood test, the doctor had Adam rushed to Children's Hospital.
There doctors determined that while sick, Adam had encountered an unknown airborne illness that caused his liver to slowly begin dying. Because of his compromised immune system, he couldn't fight off the virus that has not seemed to affect anyone else.
Initially he seemed fine in the hospital, but by Thursday, Adam's condition began to deteriorate and on Friday doctors told the Snows that Adam would have to have a transplant quickly to survive.
The family turned to the media and social media channels to get the word out about Adam's plight.
Surgery to transplant his sick liver with the donated one began in the early morning hours Saturday.
Since the surgery, Linda said Adam's color is better and by Monday he had been taken off the ventilator that had been assisting his breathing and he is now breathing on his own.
Anyone who would like to help Adam Snow’s family can send checks payable to:The Adam Snow Benefit Fundc/o NexTier Bank196 Clearview CircleButler, PA 16001Donations also can be made through Paypal, the online payment site. The Paypal account for Adam is:<A HREF="mailto:adamsnowbenefitfund@yahoo.com">adamsnowbenefitfund@yahoo.com.</a>Adam loves to fish and hunt, so the Snow family also asks that people consider the fun donation project, “Drop a Lure for Adam,” by which people can send fishing lures to him or drop them in the box at Smith’s the Main Street Florist, 136 N. Main St. in Butler, the family business.
