Many Updates

Last week Curtis noticed his port looked red and puffy and was having some pus discharge. We went to the clinic and we noticed on our way there that his eyes looked a little yellow. When we got to the clinic, they looked at the port, and had a nurse from surgery come and take a look at the port as well. It was decided that his port was infected and needed to come out immediately. We went over to the U of U hospital and saw Dr. Nelson (who originally put the port in) and had it removed. Labs were done to see why his eyes were looking yellow. They labs came back with an elevated level of bilirubin in Curtis' blood. We were scheduled to get an ultrasound at 8am the next morning. The ultrasound showed an extremely enlarged gallbladder with normal findings on the spleen, liver, and kidneys. We went back to Huntsman to review the results. The surgeon decided they needed additional imaging and sent us to have an MRCP done which is: Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography, in medical imaging, a technique to visualise the biliary tract and pancreatic ducts. This was a 12 hour day by this time.. The following day we came back to Huntsman to get the results and the preliminary report looked like there was tumor in the gallbladder. They decided they thought it would be best to put a stent in his common bile duct to try and drain some of the bile into his intestines. Here is a pic of the gallbladder and biliary ducts:


We were called back that afternoon and told we needed to come to the hospital immediately to get started on antibiotics because the final report from the MRCP came back and the gallbladder has ruptured. A ruptured gallbladder untreated can cause peritonitis, sepsis and death. We came to the hospital and they decided to go in and put the stent in the common bile duct to release some of the pressure of the gallbladder and avoid further damage. The stent was put in around 6pm Monday evening, 1/25/12. Curtis was in severe pain before the procedure starting several days last week. Once the stent was put and the pressure was released, the pain and his bilirubin levels started to drop. He is still in the hospital and will be released this morning. The plan is to have Dr. Glasgow due surgery to attempt to remove the gallbladder laparoscopically, if possible on Monday 1/30/12. The gallbladder will be biopsied to confirm cancer, and if all goes well, we are hoping that he will be able to start his new chemo folfiri and cetuximab two weeks following surgery. His last PET scan 3 weeks ago showed growth of the tumors in his lungs and new tumors growing in his lungs as well. We are not sure when the port will be replaced (Curtis refuses to get a PICC line) we are hoping they can do it with the gallbladder procedure, but it may need to be a separate surgery in the next week or so.

Last week we began to move back into our house that we had to rent out for a year following Curtis' diagnosis last December. It feels nice to be in our home again.. 

There hasn't been much work done on the Airstream as of yet, if Curtis feels up to it, we hope to begin working on it in the next month.