February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Then Oscar contracted an infection in his mouth and became critically ill.
“It looked extremely bleak for a while, to be honest,” said Finbar Murphy, Oscar’s father, adding that the boy’s condition has stabilized somewhat at New York Presbyterian and that he had his most restful night on Sunday.
“He’s had four transfusions in the last four days, and he will need them daily into the foreseeable future,” Murphy, a Cork hotelier, said Monday. “He’s improved a little in the last 24 hours.”
However, a family friend, Mark Kelleher, said Tuesday: “He had a tough enough night last night. He reacted to some of the blood.”
Kelleher has asked for people who want to donate blood to register at the database www.oscarmurphy.net and not to contact the hospital directly.
“Sloan Kettering will contact them,” he said.
The family is asking people with O negative and A negative blood to donate. About 50 percent of Americans with those blood types are CMV negative, which is what Oscar needs; the comparable figure for Irish people is 85 percent, and that’s why a special appeal is being made to the New York