Yellow

About three weeks ago, the stomach bug ran through our house.  During that week, our household consisted of 11 and it hit all but two of us.  Nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.  Fun stuff.  The good news is that it only lasted a couple of days.  Well, except for one of us.  E. seemed to get the same stuff as the rest of us, only it seemed to hang on and never let go.  And it got worse and worse.  And the symptoms kept piling up.

Last week, I drug him to the doctor.  The doctor agreed with E. that his immune system probably just wasn't as strong as it used to be and so it was going to take him longer than the rest of us to get rid of this bug.  Things didn't seem right to me though.  This seemed more than the stomach bug.  E. was having stomach pains/cramps, nausea (although no vomiting), bloating, gas, intermittent diarrhea, back pain, fatigue, and loss of appetite.  I was sure he was dehydrated.  And I was sure his blood sugars were completely out of whack.  He hadn't had a decent night of sleep in weeks.  He looked downright miserable.  Oh and top of everything else, he passed a couple of kidney stones in midst of all this.

Yesterday, back to the doctor we went.  She suspected a possible bowel obstruction and recommended a visit with a gastro-intestinal doctor and a colonoscopy.  She sent us off with a lab slip as well.  While E. was getting his lab work, I was on the phone making his GI appt.  Turns out, you can't just make an appt for a colonoscopy when you're having symptoms ... you actually have to have a consultation first.  Thankfully, they had a cancellation so we were able to get an appt for today.

And that brings us to today.  E.'s lab work came back.  He has a urinary tract infection.  And a kidney infection.  And something is going on with his liver.  Like something crazy.

The four lab tests that have to do with liver are:
1) Bilirubin, Total ... normal 0.0-1.1 (E.'s = 8.4)
2) Alkaline Phosphatase ... normal 25-150 (E.'s = 390)
3) AST ... normal 0-40 (E.'s 173)
4) ALT ... normal 0-44 (E.'s 128).

So, a colonoscopy is out right now because there is no way he can handle the contrast.  He's been taken off a couple of his meds because they'll make his liver even worse.  He's been given a few prescriptions ... 1. antibiotics for the infections, 2. anti-itch meds (high bilirubin levels make you itch horribly ... who knew?), 3. anti-gas meds, and 4. anti-nausea meds.  He has more lab work to get done to test for a variety of Hepatitises (can you make Hepatitis plural?), the Epstein Barr Virus, as well as a few other things.  He's going in for an endoscopy on Thursday.  And he has an MRI and a MRCP of his liver on Friday.  I have no idea what an MRCP is yet and haven't had a chance to look it up, but it is done at the same time as the MRI and done at the radiation department at the hospital as well, so I'm assuming it's something similar.

He's lost 20 pounds in 3 weeks.  And yes, he's yellow.  Even his eyeballs are yellow.

Vision Changes

A few months ago, E. went to the eye doctor and discovered that he needed stronger prescription glasses.  Such is life as you get older, eh?  He was also due for another yearly "threshold test."  So, last week, he completed the threshold tests and brought home the results.  Here are the side-by-side comparisons.  Now, I'm not an optometrist, but I'm thinking there's a pretty big difference here.  And I'm guessing the black spots aren't good.

Threshold Tests

Left eye 2011 on top

Left eye 2012 on bottom

 Right eye 2011 on top

Right eye 2012 on bottom

I might have freaked out just a tad.  Holy crap!  Are you blind?  Can you see?  Can you drive?  What do we do?  Is there anything we can do?  As usual, E. was very calm about the whole deal.  "We're supposed to make an appointment with the neurologist about it, I guess."  I called the neurologist and explained the situation and asked to make an appointment.  I think they were as confused as I was.  "Are you sure you weren't supposed to make an appointment with a neuro-opthamologist?  We deal with his seizures.  They would deal with any eye issues."  Ummm, let me make some phone calls and call you back.

I called the optometrist's office back and had a very entertaining conversation (after getting the introduction information out of the way).

Me:  "These threshold test results seem concerning.  What are we supposed to do from here?"
Office staff:  "Make an appointment with your neurologist.  We told your husband that."
Me:  "Yes, but we called the neurologist and they said they only deal with seizures and not eyes."
Office staff:  "Oh."
Me:  "They said that perhaps we were supposed to be referred to a neuro-opthamologist?"
Office staff:  "If you were supposed to have been referred to a neuro-opthamologist, we would have told you that."
Me:  "Okay then.  So we do nothing?"
Office staff:  "I guess not.  We'll see you again in a year for another threshold test."
Me:  "Can he drive?"
Office staff:  "The doctor didn't say otherwise."

Allrightythen.  Everyone feel better now?


Just to let you know, a couple of the kids had eye appointments yesterday, so I was able to talk to the optometrist directly.  E.'s field of vision has definitely been effected but his eyes have probably compensated with extra movement and what-have-you.  He was surprised that E.'s neurologist didn't want to see him, but agreed that it would be more of an informational meeting than anything.  He didn't think a referral to the neuro-opthamologist was necessary because typically they want to try to figure out the CAUSE of the loss of the field of vision.  We know the cause ... brain tumors, brain surgery, brain radiation, and diabetes on top of all that.  It's not really a shocker.  There isn't anything that can be done about it.  It may eventually get to the point where E. cannot drive.  He suggested that E. be careful driving, especially at night.  I expressed how shocked I was at the dramatic difference between last year's test and this year's test.  The optometrist agreed, but told me that he was surprised that last year's test showed so little loss.  He had expected more decline at that time.  Perhaps E. is making up for lost time then.  Yikes.

"Looks Good"

I knew we wouldn't hear anything over the weekend, so I pushed it out of my mind until Monday morning.  I figured I'd give it until lunch time until I'd start bugging them.  I started looking at the clock by 11:30.  I reasoned they'd be back in the office no later than 1:30.  By 1:20, I could take it no longer and I called.  I got a hold of the nurse (the very nurse that saved the day on E.'s very first day of chemotherapy way back when is now Dr. T.'s nurse) who said she'd track down the results and talk to the doctor and get back to me.

A few minutes later, she called me back and informed me that the both Dr. T. and Dr. L. had reviewed the MRI results and that everything "looks good."  They'll see us again in February.

Big smiles.

S.