Well, the first day after the long weekend brought all kinds of activity. First of all, it seems that medical students are required to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn and make their rounds before the residents, who make their rounds before the attending physicians. So the med students (easily identified by their short white coats with green lettering) start around 05:00 am. They come in and ask a bunch of very simple questions and act like they know what they're doing. Then the residents come in starting at 06:00 am and ask slightly more relevant questions. The residents are actual doctors, so they have the long white coats with red lettering. Like the military, the medical field has their uniforms and customs. Finally, the attending doctors come in starting around 08:00 am or so. That's when the real action happens. As usual, it's good to be the senior person.
Anyway, on to the update. Marye started out early with a CT scan-guided core biopsy of the mass inside her liver. Simple enough, she was back in about an hour. Then she slept for a while and after lunch, the wheelchair showed up to take her to get a doppler scan on her legs. It seems that her right leg is a little swollen and the ID doctor wanted to see if there were any blood clots. The day ended with an echocardiogram of her heart to see if the infection she has has migrated there. We haven't gotten the results of any of the tests, yet, but we should start hearing about them tomorrow.
Of course, the one we're waiting on the most is the biopsy, and of course, that won't come back for at least a day or two, with two or three days for the final report. So hopefully, we'll know for sure what kind of cancer this is by the end of the week.
Otherwise, Marye is feeling fairly well, but she has some gas pains as a result of the ERCP the other day. Hopefully that will subside, because she is able to eat without too much trouble. We were expecting her to stay here until the end of the week, but the doctor says he may discharge her on Wednesday. I'll post the results of the various tests as we get them.
-Chris
