Noah: A steroid-free future

Noah and Julee Davies

SPRING 2002 - Five months before his birth, an ultrasound alerted Noah Davies' parents that his kidneys appeared enlarged. Greg and Julee Davies were concerned, but they had no idea Noah would need a kidney transplant before his first birthday.

Immediately after he was born in May 2000, doctors discovered blockages in the urine pathway from both of Noah's kidneys to the bladder. Although the blockage was surgically removed when Noah was just two weeks old, the Davies had to wait several months to find out whether the kidneys had been harmed by urine pressure that had built up while he was still in the uterus.

"It was very stressful. We didn't know how bad the damage was," says Noah's father, Greg. But as the summer progressed, a transplant seemed likely.

The Davies met Oscar Salvatierra and other members of Packard's pediatric kidney transplant team when Noah was about 3 months old. The group's experience impressed the parents, as did the program's novel approach to preventing kidney rejection.

"The clincher was that Stanford was beginning the steroid-free program," Greg admits. "No one else had that."The Davies wanted Noah to grow normally and look like other kids, and only Packard's immunosuppression program could promise these results.

By the time he was 6 months old, Noah was quite sick. He was vomiting frequently and required a feeding tube because he could not eat. Soon, he started a difficult course of nightly dialysis. Finally, in April 2001, Salvatierra transplanted Julee's adult-sized kidney into Noah's tiny belly.

With the new kidney and the steroid-free drug regimen, Noah can eat a nearly normal diet. He has grown from being in the smallest 5 percent for his age group to about average height, and has joined the 90th percentile for weight.

Greg Davies has nothing but praise for the Packard team. "We've had a great experience and are really pleased with how things have turned out," he says. "It's an outstanding program. I think they are the best out there."