Late Night Tuesday Update

Sometimes the treatment is a bigger problem than the problem. Trish had her ECP treatment today (that wasn't a problem at all). In fact, she looked a lot better curled up in the ECP chair than she did curled up in her hospital bed. I truly think she has developed a mental allergy to being "in" the hospital. An allergy that triggers nausea and vomitting.

Today she looked pretty good, though she was a bit yellow. She was hungry all day today. She had jello for lunch and than during rounds she was made NPO -- no food, no drink, nothing. Tomorrow she is scheduled for a nuclear medicine test a HIDA Scan. The HIDA is designed to look for issues in the liver and gall bladder. However, one article I read says that if he Billi is higher than 15-20 the test is inconclusive. I told Trish to ask the docs about that if they come in before I get there to take her off to the test.

Dr. Griffiths came by around 1pm to do the LP (spinal tap). we were of course at the ECP session. She says she'll be back at Noon Wednesday -- so I guess the good news is she will do it and the bad news is -- it isn't optional.

Trish is wanting to eat pretty bad tonight and there in lies the problem. She has the desire, but isn't allowed to act on the desire that we have all longed to see in her. Ugh this really stinks.

So some options of what they might find.....

Damage in the gall bladder, damage in the liver, GvHd, etc. One thing that we are pretty sure of is that they won't find obstruction of the bile ducts, as all other imaging has been negative for this. Hopefully they will be able to come up with a quick plan to solve this issue. Hopefully once they solve the issue with the gall bladder, Trish's billi will continue downward and she will be good to go.

We expect to run out of insurance very shortly now, between the ECP treatments and the current hospitalization. Hopefully billing will be quick enough as not to create another problem (loss of HIPPA protection). I emailed the Hopkins financial folks o insure this isn't an issue.

Don' expect a post on Wednesday till late in the day.