The drive into the city for my liver appointment was beautiful and very simple. No traffic. A delight. It was a pleasure to greet my liver doctor, we always hug!, he shared that he just closed on his first house near my mom, we laughed at how broke he feels!, then we got down to business.
The numbers looked pretty good. He wanted to do tests for the pressure in my liver and also a biopsy. He could do a needle biopsy but it is very close to my damaged lung. Having never hit a lung before, he really doesn't want to go near mine. So, we are talking about having a transjugular liver biopsy. Yes, it is what it sounds like: They run the equipment through my jugular vein down into the liver to take a sample. There is very little chance of bleeding. Very safe. YIKES! It would be done under sedation but I would not be intubated. No way would my lung doctor allow me to be intubated unless it was an emergency. If intubated, I would have to be in ICU afterwards and I REALLY don't want to be in ICU again.
To check the pressure in my liver, they have discovered a correlation with a blood test for Hepatitis C Fibrosure. With that number, they are able to accurately predict the pressure. Interesting!
All this is because I still have a fatty liver and a slightly swollen pancreas caused by longterm prednisone use. So, I am arranging to have another sonogram to check the current status of both organs, see my lung doctor in August to get her approval for the liver biopsy then see the liver doctor in late August to set a date in September for the procedure.
I have been on the campus of my university hospital since 2004 yet I discovered an entirely new area yesterday. After the liver appointment, I tried to find the hall for the lecture given by Dr. Talmedge King, Jr. on Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis. Through the classroom area, I climbed a huge flight of stairs only to arrive at an outside grass square near the Nursing School. At that moment, Sally (the head of the ILD Support Group) arrived as well. We found the room, sat near the back and watched as it quickly filled with doctors, industrial hygienists, Occupational Disease Specialists, pathologists and my friend Marty from the ILD Group. While chatting, Sally shared with me that the very latest studies of IPF (Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis) are suggesting that the disease may be caused by dust. So very interesting.
Dr. Talmedge was a funny and lively speaker as well a presenting a fascinating lecture about how to diagnose HP, what are the possible signs in the patient's history, how it needs to be treated and other facts. The far majority of cases are Farmer's Lung and Bird Fancier's Lung. Farmers and people who have birds in their house. The farmers have to quit farming and the bird owners must give up their birds, which is often very difficult and some refuse.
I also learned that I need to get rid of all my house plants. It is the soil....
The last question for Dr. King was from a woman several row ahead of me. She was the daughter of a woman who had HP, got it from visiting her daughter house as she had a bird. He told her she has to have her entire HVAC system cleaned, her ducts from her dryer and her entire house scrubbed professionally and still it may not remove all of the antigens from the bird.
After the lecture, they passed by, I smiled and mentioned that I also had HP. Mother and daughter stopped to talk. Marty spotted us and join in. We stood for an hour sharing information as they are in the early crisis stage of their journey. We highly encouraged her to join a rehab program and to join the ILD Support Group.
Marty looked fantastic and has begun his march towards transplants. The tests have been concluded, he passed them all and now he waits for the next stage of being listed. We both said our goodbyes to the mom and daughter and took off in search of an elevator as Marty is on high levels of oxygen and did not want to do the stairs. We found one, was high jacked to the upper floors, took another as that elevator only went to our original floor, found one, went down, arrived at a hallway of old refrigerators and no humans. Kind of creepy. All the while, Marty is almost out of oxygen. We finally went back up a floor, found a person who walked us back to the original staircase where we began. We quickly said our goodbyes so he could get to another tank of oxygen in his car.
It was an easy ride home, I fought to stay awake so I could sleep well last night, had a dinner of Five-Spiced Chinese Pork with Asian Slaw for dinner and fell into bed and a deep sleep by 8:00.
A nice, interesting day.
Today, I am going to the other rehab to workout then spending the day with mom. Michael is going to drop off her old car and nab her new car on his way home tonight. We have arranged to have a new windshield on her new Mini Cooper installed tomorrow. It has a big scrape right where she looks out and it bugs her.
Tonight, we are planning to sit in the yard, listen to the CD of band who is on tour with William and talk. We also are going to take the 1966 Mustang out for a run sometime this weekend. Oh, and Mother's Day on Sunday. What a weekend ahead!
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