OK! This is really WILD!!!

SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian girl spontaneously switched blood groups and adopted her donor's immune system following a liver transplant in the first known case of its type, doctors treating her said Thursday.

Demi-Lee Brennan was aged nine and seriously ill with liver failure when she received the transplant, doctors at a top Sydney children's hospital told AFP.

Nine months later it was discovered that she had changed blood types and her immune system had switched over to that of the donor after stem cells from the new liver migrated to her bone marrow.

She is now a healthy 15-year-old, Michael Stormon, a hepatologist treating her, told AFP. Stormon said he had given several presentations on the case around the world and had heard of none like it.

"It is extremely unusual -- in fact we don't know of any other instance in which this happened," Stormon told AFP from the Children's Hospital.

"In effect she had had a bone marrow transplant. The majority of her immune system had also switched over to that of the donor."

An article on the case was published in Thursday's edition of the leading US medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine.

Doctors who treated Brennan say she is now only under treatment as an outpatient and are interested to know if the case could have other applications in transplant surgery, where rejection of donor organs by the recipient's immune system is a major hurdle.

Stormon said it appeared that Brennan may have been fortunate because a "sequence of serendipitous events", including a post-transplantation infection, may have given the stem cells from her donor's liver the chance to proliferate.

The task now was to establish whether the same sort of outcome could be replicated in other transplant patients, he said.

It's Been Awhile...

No, I'm not talking about the song by Staind...I mean it's been awhile since I last posted to my blog! So...without further ado...

Let's see...when I last posted, I was on my way to watch the Patriots beat the Jaguars. No, it wasn't their best game...but the Jaguars played them well, in the first half. They took Moss out of the game, which is huge, but in the end the Patriots stayed undefeated.

Last week, the Chargers entered, all hyped up, ready for the upset. And the Patriots are still undefeated. Now, that game was definitely not the Pat's best game ever. The Chargers played them defensively better than the Jaguars did, also taking Moss out of the game (although did you see that reverse that Moss ran for 14 yards? That was sweet!). Of course, now the Chargers are accusing Seymour of playing dirty. "Waaahhh...he stepped on my foot...he hit me in the back...he hit my helmet...Waaaaahhh!" Isn't this called FOOTBALL? Doesn't that stuff happen all the time? I mean, this isn't ping-pong! Who cares. They won, you lost.

Bring on the Giants. I don't imagine this will be an easy game, but I have no doubt that the Patriots will prevail. I just don't see it being a "gimme".

So one of my coworkers and I were talking at work the other day, and thinking of coming up with a list of reasons that people call 911...and our little "additions" to those reasons.

- "I'm having chest pain!" Granny...when I brought you to the Hospital 4 days ago, you were diagnosed with pneumonia. You've been coughing for a week. You've aggravated every muscle in your entire chest. Do you think maybe THAT'S WHY you're having chest pain? Oh...by the way...it was bothering you so much that you had to call me at 3am???

- "My stomach hurts!" Ummmmmm...listen...you're 17 years old, a Senior in High School, under all that peer pressure...and for the last year and a half, you've made yourself puke after every meal you've eaten. Tonight you ate Taco Bell...then yakked. Ya' Think your belly-button-ringed stomach hurts??? Oh...by the way...it was bothering you so much that you had to call me at 3am???

- "I'm not drunk!" OK...here's the deal: I know you told me you only had "2 or 3"...which in reality means, you had 9 or 13. You took out 2 mailboxes, a picket fence, Mrs. Anderson's beautiful shrubs, before you broke the telephone pole in half when you hit it head-on. I know you're not drunk...I really do...but if you come to the Hospital with me, you won't have to ride with the cops (they'll follow us and arrest you when you get discharged). Oh...by the way...did you have to be not drunk and crash your car at 3am???

- "I want to die." Uh-huh. You took a steak knife, and made these little scratches on your wrist that looks better than some of my shaving jobs. You don't want to kill yourself. You are looking for attention from your girlfriend, because she wouldn't lend you the $15,000 to pay for your gender reassignment surgery, so you said that you tried to kill yourself. Listen...next time you're SERIOUS about doing it...give me a call. I'll give you some pointers. Oh...by the way...did you have to try to nick yourself with that big bad steak knife at 3am???

- Well, I'll give you this much...you're not talking much. In all your infinite wisdom, when the sleeping couple heard you break into their house, and called 911, and you saw the Police Cruiser coming with it's blue lights flashing, you decided to run...in the dark...through yards and woods that you've never been in. How could you have known that you were running towards a 50-foot rock cliff? How could you have known that you'd run right off the cliff, and land on your head? If I was a religious man, I'd read you your last rights...because though your heart is still beating, you will not see your next Birthday. But...I just have one small question...If by some miracle of modern medicine...you should survive...next time you break into a house, could you do it during the day, and not at 3am???

- "My toe hurts!" You know what? I'll treat you like a QUEEN! I'll bundle you up so you're nice and warm...I'll talk to you, and listen to you, like a gentleman. I'll tell little jokes to make you laugh. I'll baby you, all the way to the Hospital so you can get your ingrown toe-nail looked at. I will tie up the only ambulance in your Town, so we can pamper you and bring you to the Hospital. Why am I being so nice to you??? Because it's 10am...I've checked my truck out, had my coffee and a bagel...and I am smiling with the knowledge that at 3am, you will not be calling me about your toe!

Nighty night everyone. :-)