3 Years 2 Months and ?? Days.

We got transferred to Big Medical Center on Friday night and everything got so much better. I hate admitting it but my own hospital’s inpatient medicine team was just...not as strong and sharp as it might have been. Plus the different in finances is apparent at every turn. So just being a sick person here is a better experience.

His bleeding slowed on its own with blood and medicine so that’s good. Still with MELD score of 34 but that is to be expected. He had a tagged red cell study yesterday which indicated the bleeding was in the distal small bowel so that was progress. But the small bowel is tough to get to.

The plan: colonoscopy and “capsule camera” tomorrow to find out what to do next. He just signed consents and swallowed a “scout capsule” which is an x-ray-visible sugar pill the same size/shape as the capsule camera to make sure the bowel is open and the real camera will pass properly. Then bowel prep tonight and an x-ray at midnight to make sure the capsule went where it should. Then tomorrow the tests. Then we use the results of those tests to
find out what to do next.

Otherwise he is still doing a little better each day. Held onto his hematocrit so no more blood, creatinine still steady and he’s _off_ fluid restrictions hooray.

The new -attending- hepatologist is nice but his fellow, who runs the show, is dweeby. Hubby is fine with him but I don’t care much for him.

So far, so good. Of course the test results could all be absolutely awful - like a tumor - but for now we are okay.

I’m remembering to eat and drink and the recliner in the room is comfy enough. My current game plan is to stay distracted (good stuff on iPhone Kindle app) since worrying ain’t gonna do a damned bit of good. Wait for more data. I’ve known all along that “and then he dies” is on the table so it’s not like I’m in denial, just taking it a step at a time. “And then he gets a new liver and a whole new life” is -also- on the table. Holding both of those side by side in my head is too hard so best to just see what the Next Thing is.

Also....it really could be just so much worse. So I’m grateful we have come this far.