What a Ride!

Today was our follow-up visit to our primary care MD. (Okay, really it was J-Man's appointment but as we are attached at the hip these days, I felt it was our appointment.) The hospital had not sent a copy of the biopsy to our doctor as promised, so his staff got on the phone and hustled up the report. ( Just subtracted 3 points from the rival hospital's grade.)  And the result?  We still don't know what caused the liver failure. The reading was a bunch of gobbledy-gook--even our MD was scratching his head over the report--but it seems to be ruling out cancer and any auto-immune diseases.  The pathologist's comment suggests either a drug reaction or some sort of blockage outside the liver, which was already ruled out with CT scans and MRI. He also said cirrhosis can't be ruled out--but cirrhosis is a very generic condition with multiple causes--all of which we have already eliminated, with the exception of "drugs, toxins and infections."

So really, we don't know much more than we did before.  We don't know what caused his liver to shut down, and we don't know if it will happen again, but he seems to be getting better: the itching has stopped and he's lost about 25 lbs of fluid, both of which would indicate his liver is beginning to function again.

One side complication: J-Man was started on a normal dose of oral blood thinner for the clots in his leg, in preparation for getting him off the injectable blood thinner.  They did a quick test in the doctor's office to check his level, then came back and re-did the test--and it was so high it wouldn't register.  We were sent over to the hospital to have the test done a third time, and it read critically high.  All blood thinners have been stopped for now and the physician's office and I had to call around to find a pharmacy that carries an injectable Vitamin K so I could give him that dose ASAP and make him clot again. Things just can't be simple, can they?

Monday we'll rerun the tests and try to get him back on track. Tomorrow at work I will go into the computer and look up his other labs. I suspect they will prove his liver function is improving.

Many thanks to all of you who have had us in your thoughts and prayers these last two weeks. It is awesome to think that people we have never laid eyes on and may never meet in this life, have cared that much.