Not a great day...........

So today marks a new milestone in our journey and it is not one we are particularly happy about...

We met with Dr. Meade today - before the counts came in -- He said he spent his weekend thinking about us, making calls on our behalf and trying to decide what to do next.

As you know from our writings, it was our hope that being off the Zyvox would help return Trish's liver function numbers to their downward trend and bring an end to their plateau or rise. Today, Trish's billirubin rose 4.3 points. The liver enzymes did go down just a little bit (you can see these on the chart, by now you should know where to click for it).

Dr. Meade offered us two "soups": ECP - which we have discussed here before and a single drug (I forget the name), two shots a week. The two shot a week routine had some pretty scary side effects. Many people on it got fatal infections that they could not fight or be helped with fighting with any success.

ECP has few side effects, but will take up to a month to know if it is working and Trish may need to be on it for six months to year(s) to keep things in check.

At this point we are running low on options and heavy on faith, prayer and your support. If Trish's liver function doesn't get under control soon, she could be facing fatal liver failure.

We are not sure at this point when ECP will begin. Our next IPOP appointment is on Wednesday. Probably the hardest part of arranging for the treatment is insurance approval. We hope we will be able to start treatment on Wednesday, but it may be the end of the week.

For now, we could sure use our prayers and support. We will continue to be at the Hackerman House, if you wish to send Trish well wishes in the mail.

Today was a tough day. Lots of tears. But it is the first day of our next battle and we will fight it with everything we have.