4/14/13

Where to begin?  Where indeed?  What if I wrote an entire piece all in questions?  How would that make you feel?  Did you miss me?  I bet you did?  Did you know that if you put a question mark at the end of a non-question sentence it becomes a question?

OK, now that we are all warmed up, let us begin.  First off, it has been a while since my last post and much has happened, but I don’t really feel like going into all of it right now so I will just start with where we are tonight, and then maybe work backwards o’er the next few days.

Not sure who all I have talked to, and when that last was so here is an update on Cole.

Last Thursday we went in for a CT-A and ultrasound to try and figure out why he has been having the stomach pains.  They found three things.

1.  There are now multiple areas of the small intestine that are showing damage.  If you remember there was one area of damage last time he was admitted.  They think that this is more of the radiation memory thing.

2.  They saw a spot of something outside, near, but not touching, the intestines.  The first thought was that it was new disease.  After all of Kaiser (oncology, radiation oncology, and GI docs) consulted with all of UCSF, they now do not think that it is disease.  The reason for this thought is that there are no other indicators (labs are all completely clean) to support new disease.

The result of all of this is that they are going to do a scope from the top and bottom (referred to as the skewer my son with cameras procedure) to look inside the GI system.  In addition, Dr. Sullivan is going to do a laproscopic procedure to look at the outside of the area.  She is also going to do a biopsy of the spot that is new.

We just checked into Room 3206 of Chez Kaiser to get ready for these procedures (get ready is the medical term for pour drain-o down him to clean him out).  Assuming that all goes well, he should be getting out on Tues or Wed.  There is a chance that when Sullivan goes in, she will see that the damaged part of the bowel is too damaged to leave alone, and she will perform a Control-X/Control-V procedure.

I learned today that we have 27 feet of bowel (might be more, not sure if we were only talking about the small intestine) and we only actually need 40cm.

I will update everyone on Monday afternoon after we get the results and know more.  For now; however, please raise your glasses and toast Cole, Zombie Killer #1.