Something to Fix

I had a return trip to the Mayo Clinic last week.  My bilirubin has risen to 19.  It has almost doubled in the last month, causing me to be a lot more jaundiced and also causing some abdominal pain.  After meeting with both my liver doctor and lymphoma doctor they decided to have me do a PET scan(to check for cancer) as well as an ERCP(to check the liver).

For the ERCP they sedate me completely, with the anesthesia team, put in a breathing tube and pass a scope down my throat.  They were able to see that a couple of my bile ducts were nearly closed off, not allowing bile to pass through into my intestine, so they opened them up with a balloon, removed some sludge and stones that had formed from the pooling bile.  After that they placed two plastic stents to keep the bile ducts open.  Even though I have to go back in 3 months to have the stents removed this was fairly good news as in there was something to fix.  These stents will keep the ducts open and get the bile flowing again, which will also make my abdominal pain go away and drop my bilirubin.  These were the first pictures of my liver in 4 years and my doctor said he was expecting it to look worse than it did.  So that was good to hear also.

Right now I’m still pretty sore, all over really, but mainly my throat and jaw.  My ribs and abdomen are also pretty sore because of all the air they pump into me during the procedure.  But this should all go away in a few days and hopefully get me back on track for a while.

Also, the PET scan showed no Lymphoma, which is obviously good.  But every day that passes that I’m in remission from cancer is that much better for me with another liver transplant looming.  My chances of getting a liver and surviving a transplant are just that much better.

The one negative is I lost about 8 pounds in the last two weeks, just not eating properly since I wasn’t feeling good.  So I’ll have to work hard now to get that weight back.

Thanks for checkin’ in,

Mike

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~ by Mike on May 8, 2011.