Irv Update - September 2011 #9

Irv and I got training today on manging the diabetes with insulin now that his pancreatic duct is still completely blocked. My heck but that stuff is expensive! To really piss me off, the public pharmacy at Virginia Mason DOES NOT accept our insurance for prescriptions. Can you believe it? So we had to find a Bartells drug store. Luckily, there is one quite close to Dianne's house. We pissed and moaned so much that instead of another endoscopic procedure not until Friday they agreed to do a needle biopsy of the pancreas in Interventional Radiology at 3:00 PM tomorrow. We should be able to stay at Dianne's again and then go home on Thursday! Dr. Biehl, the surgeon was the one who said to get the biospy done NOW so they worked it out. He also said that he really, really hopes he will be able to name a diagnosis after this procedure. We have our doubts. As mentioned before. Then, we come back on the 23rd for pre-op with the big surgery on Sat. the 24th. Irv will be in the hospital for about 7 days, if we are lucky. We hope they will decide which surgery they will be doing before then! There will definitely something surgical done to "fix" as best as possible Irv's "guts." Irv is feeling pretty good. Both drains have been capped now and it is hoped that the bile, after the new placement, will drain into the GI tract and not be blocked up again. We just have to flush it out 2x a day with a syringe of saline. He is still slightly yellow, but his bilirubin was down to 3.6 from a high over 8.0. (Normal is 1.1 or less!) We know a serious operation is in the future, but he is so much better than a week ago, when we thought he was probably dying that we are kind of euphoric. We will keep you informed. Penny and Irv