Family makes public plea to help find baby new liver

CLINTON, Md. - A family in Clinton, Md. is making a public plea to help find their 8-month-old baby a new liver.

Blake Thomas was born at just 23 weeks. He was small, fragile and his organs were extremely underdeveloped. He spent nearly 130 days in the neonatal intensive care unit where he fought through brain hemorrhages and heart surgery while his underdeveloped organs grew. After four months in the NICU, Blake’s family finally got to bring their little fighter home.

Now, months later, baby Blake is facing another unimaginable obstacle.

“Blake has a malignant tumor of his liver which involves multiple areas in the liver,” said Dr. Marianna Horn, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist Kaiser Permanente.

The hepatoblastoma childhood liver cancer is so rare that only one in every 1,000,000 kids gets it. The good news is it's treatable, but after five rounds of chemotherapy, the only realistic option is a living donor.

So now, the Thomas family and Blake’s doctors are desperately searching for a liver donor for him. They’ve had several nonliving possible donations fall through, and Blake’s parents themselves are not a match. So they are hoping kind strangers might be willing to fill out a health questionnaire with Georgetown University Hospital to help save their baby boy’s life.

“We’re hopeful someone will come through and save our baby's life,” Rebecca Thomas told FOX 5’s Alexandra Limon.

If Blake finds a matching donor, he will then have a 98 percent chance of recovery, which is amazing considering he only had a 20 percent survival chance when he was born premature.

Anyone seriously interested can contact Georgetown University Hospital or Blake's parents via email:

Rebecca Thomas: Rcthomas1323@gmail.com

Mike Thomas: Miketh23@gmail.com

If you want to donate to the family to help with medical costs, click here.