Ok, there has been a lot of activity in the past 72 hours, and it's not over yet. But I'll try to get everyone caught up. On Wednesday, they did the cholesystogram, and the initial report had the drain tube in the right spot. This was backed up by the amount of horrid-looking bile that was draining into the bag. She still had a lot of pain in her belly, but her gall bladder is still severely inflammed. Over the past few days, the amount of fluid draining continuously fell, which totally made sense.
The other major symptom she had was the high white blood cell (WBC) count. That has gone up and down daily. They take a blood draw twice a day, and it went from 40, to 32, back up to 38, etc... She has no fever, but that could be a result of the steroids, or her weakened immune system, or both. Well, today, the doctor came and explained that they revised the initial to say that the drain was, in fact, not in the proper location in the gall bladder. It definately started out right, but it can pull out very easily, especially if the swollen gall bladder retracts somewhat once it starts draining. Also, she started coughing up some, today. That makes sense, since she's been in bed since Sunday. So she got another chest x-ray to make sure she doesn't have any pneumonia.
Moving forward, the plan is to get another CT scan to see if there are any other areas of abcess (infection) in the abdomen, then have the radiologist attempt to replace the drain tube in the gall bladder. If that doesn't work, then they'll have to do it on Saturday in surgery. Her symptoms pretty much make sense with what the theory is about the drain tube. If it started to drain well, then her WBC count would certainly go down. But if it later slipped, then the infection could have taken hold again, accounting for the WBC spikes. She is on a very potent antibiotic, Zosin, which is probably helping to keep it at bay. The longer-term plan is to get the infection under control, then wait a few weeks before they try to remove the gall bladder. Waiting will allow the inflammation to go down and increase the chances that it can be done laproscopically. But that's still a ways down the road. For the time being, we're just trying to get this infection under control and get her comfortable.
I'll post more as I can. I'll update again tonight with the result of the drain tube procedure and CT scan.
-Chris
