Pete’s Musings

I’m at home this weekend on a bit of a break from the tests at the hospital. “Conge” as the french nurses call it, which means vacation. LoL. Not quite that, but it does feel good to be home and I’m doing pretty well. Sleeping solid for 6-8 hours 2 nights in a row. Still able to do a bit of work like dishes and cleaning a bit of the fridge. Still have the pain in my gut when up and about for a while, but nothing too intense. Haven’t had any intense pain in my liver/gallbladder area since my last night in the hospital 3 days ago. Then it lasted for 4-5 hours and required a shot of pain killer. I think it was brought on by ‘trying too hard’ to produce a stool, which makes since as this is what also seemed to immediately precede my second ‘episode’ on Friday (two weeks ago now).
Doctors still haven’t given me a clear idea of what’s going on and Read More »

Blah. Has not been the best of months here! Started just before Christmas with a bad cold that really put a damper on the festive season. Then 2 days after Christmas I developed this horrible pain in my lower right side. Fearing the worst, I thought that I had overdone it with the fatty foods and had set off a gallstone attack … which in turn started chaos in my liver and/or pancreas. These are my troublesome organs, all taking a severe beating as a result of my ill-health and treatment. Pain was truly horrible and debilitating. I could barely get out of bed in the mornings … and only then with a sharp pain so excruciating I usually had to let out a scream and ‘endure’ the pain for a few minutes. Being somewhat stubborn and fearing reentry into the hospital, Read More »

Well, I’ve been sitting on this for almost a week now, guess I had better let it out. Had an incredibly discouraging visit with my Dr last thursday. After 4-5 months of my Liver function tests not budging at all, they finally moved. Unfortunately, they moved in the wrong direction. We saw a jump of 25-35% across the board. I am now back to the point where I am just a few steps away from the danger zone (which is about 2-3 times normal LFTs) where it wouldn’t take much to push me into liver failure. Really bad news. What’s worse is that my Dr doesn’t really seem to know what to do about it. The meds obviously aren’t doing the trick. Read More »

You know, one day I really hope that I’ll have something good to write here about my health. Today is not that day however. I had my monthly visit with my liver doctor yesterday. Went over my blood test results and recent ultrasound. My liver function values didn’t budge at all again this month. I plotted up these results and compared to all my previous ones … this makes over 4 months where my LFTs haven’t changed at all, despite the high doses of prednisone and Imuran I’ve been on. Even the doctor was discouraged by that. He said that normally he would recommend increasing my prednisone even more that this point in hopes of getting those LFTs lower and maybe even inducing a remission in the disease. But considering how severely the prednisone is affecting me physically, mentally, and emotionally … he said he could not increase it. Instead, he upped the imuran some more. Did this last visit and it didn’t help at all, but worth trying again if it means I can avoid worsening my side-effects. Read More »

Not sure what is going on with my health lately, but something is definitely wrong. I haven’t been able to figure it out, so I thought I better write it down before I forget in case it’s important later. On Sunday, May 7th, I had a sudden increase in abdominal swelling … probably 3-4 inches left, right, and out - all along my lower gut, and some up the middle as well. It really freaked me out needless to say. I had just started a new course of medication 4 days prior, and had over-exerted myself that day reorganising the shacks outside. At the time, I presumed that the swelling was a result of one of those 2 things. I noticed that my face was also looking swollen. Getting worried. I tried in vain for a week to get a hold of my liver specialist - an impossible task given that there is no answering service at his office or clinic. Read More »

Had my monthly visit with my Liver specialist yesterday. Also had a full abdominal ultrasound. Things are looking ok. Blood work is still improving, albeit slower. My liver enzymes (ALT and AST) are still elevated, but my billirubin and INR are really close to normal. Here’s a plot of my results … Read More »

This keeping track of my health thing is starting to get old. lol. But little else going on around here, so WTH … I made some graphs that I’ll show you later. Had a visit with my Liver Specialist last Thursday. He lowered my Prednisone dose to 40mg/day to help with ‘the shakes’. It’s been 4 days now, and they’re still there. Guess I’m just going to have to live with them for a while because the more I lower the meds, the longer it’s going to take for my system to get back into working order. Read More »

Yesterday, my family doctor (who isn’t directly following my liver problems, only general health issues) called me up on the phone and insisted that I come in today to talk to him about my xray, ECG, and blood work from last week. Didn’t have anything to do today, so got it over with - they squeezed me in as soon as I arrived. It’s kinda funny, he was really concerned by what he saw in my blood work. It’s all still alarming indicative of possible liver failure according to his appraisal. I kinda knew that already, but hearing it from him is a strong reminder that I am still not even close to a well individual. Read More »