In My Shoes: Darn Liver!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Darn Liver!

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Well once again the liver is the main problem. It seems because the blood can't get back through the liver from the spleen and the blood needs to go somewhere, so it is making its own pathways and many are now going through her intestines giving her "congestion" in the bowels. This means that the bowels are swollen and irritated making it hard for the matter to move along. They have been giving her medicine to get the action going and have not had much success. Right now they are working hard to avoid surgery AND save her bowels. She still feels really crumby and she can no longer have any pain pills so she is miserable. Darn liver disease. It just effects everything. As I told the liver doctor today, we are saving the bowels and lungs..at all cost. We just aren't going to lose those organs! Period!!

I asked about the inflammed liver and elevated liver numbers and the liver doctor said he wasn't too concerned. He said that just the pain and the intestinal involvement could be causing those numbers to fluctuate but they are improving each day.....except..............her platelets are really dropping. Today she was 27,000 where as Monday her platelets were 40,000. Not unexpected since she is still bleeding but not helping either.

She needs to get well this week and somehow she needs to get the eye exam that is required to the experimental drug done ASAP. She is suppose to start taking the experimental drug next week....otherwise the biopsy will need to be rescheduled, drug company contacted...ARGH. Why is it never easy??

The only thing good is I'm on vacation so I'm not missing any work and not using any valuable sick leave days. Thank you, Fiona, for getting sick at the best time for Mom.

Peg

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Biliary Atresia

Biliary atresia is a condition in which the ducts that carry bile from the liver to the gallbladder and small intestine are not normal. These ducts can be injured, blocked, or missing. When the ducts that carry bile out of the liver are closed, bile backs up and damages liver tissue. In time the liver can develop scarring or cirrhosis. The gallbladder may also be abnormal or missing. The cause of Biliary Atresia is unknown. It occurs in one infant in every 15,000 live births. It is a serious disease which requires immediate surgical and medical treatment.

Arteriovenous Malformations AVMS

I have been diagnosed with AVMS in my lungs do to my liver disease. These have caused me to have 2 lung bleeds which were very scary. I still have more AVMS and they are causing me breathing problems. Below is an explanation of what the AVMs are and a picture of what is happening in my lungs.

Arteries and veins are part of the human cardiovascular system. Normally, the arteries in the vascular system carry oxygen-rich blood at a relatively high pressure. Structurally, arteries divide and sub-divide repeatedly, eventually forming a sponge-like capillary bed. Blood moves through the capillaries, giving up oxygen and taking up waste products from the surrounding cells. Capillaries successively join together, one upon the other, to form the veins that carry blood away at a relatively low pressure. The heart acts to pump blood from the low pressure veins to the high pressure arteries.
If the capillary bed is thought of as a sponge, then an AVM is the rough equivalent of jamming a tangle of flexible soda straws from artery to vein through that sponge. On arteriogram films AVM formation often resemble a tangle of spaghetti noodles. This tangle of blood vessels forms a relatively direct connection between high pressure arteries and low pressure veins.
The result is a collection of blood vessels with abnormal connections and no capillaries. This collection, often called a nidus, can be extremely fragile and prone to bleeding.