Thursday, April 3, 2008

If it's not one thing.....

Yesterday was my 6 mo check up with the liver transplant docs at U of U. I had an ultrasound in the morning and that went ok, there was no water and it seemed everything was fine. We had a later appointment to meet with the doctor so jeremy and i just roamed around slc killing time. Its was kinda relaxing cuz my sweet sister tiffany took owen for the day and we didnt have the added stress of entertaining him. thanks tiff!
So then we went for our appointment and the liver transplant dept has been doing some remodeling and we were told it would be long wait! We really didnt wait that long though and were back in the room within an hour. The doctor i see Dr Hudson is really nice but doesnt look like any Dr i have ever worked for. He has a ponytail and he has a body builders walk. He examined me and come to find out my liver score for transplant has gone down to a 4 when it was previously a 9. Which i thought was pretty sweet but i guess not because now my spleen is doing worse and it infact growing in size. So much in fact they are insisting i do another scope down my throat to check for varicose viens. I swear if its not one thing its another.
It didnt really make sense to me until Dr Hudson explained that my blood flows from my spleen to the liver and then throughout the body...well my liver being so scared is not allowing proper blood flow and the blood having to go somewhere is backing up and causing lots of pressure.
He called it portal hypertension. I know a scary word. Well this hypertension is forced into the viens in my esophagus and can cause these varicose viens that can potentially rupture and that is no good. So in the next month or so i will have another egd(scope down the throat) and then if there are any of these viens that are bulging the dr will tie them off with a rubber band. So good that there is something can be done but bad in the fact my liver cirrhosis is still the same.
The good news is Owen survived with Tiff for 12 hrs and she is still talking to me! Its dumb the way my life is and i feel terrible havingto lean on people but i am eternally gratefull they are willing to help.
On a post note i am still feeling great and making it to the gym everyday to get my endurance up.
One day i will write of happy silly things just hope they are sooner than later....