Question about Livers.....

[Hebbie]

Well....because it's ALWAYS something....

My parents are on vacation this week in Vegas. Having a great old time, until my mom ended up in excrutiating abdomenal pain that radiated up to her breast bone and she had a hard time taking deep breaths......long story short, she ended up in an Ambulance, lights blaring down the Vegas Strip, to the emergency room.

She threw up a few times, and finally the pain meds kicked in and she felt a little better. They did a chest x-ray, which was fine, and an abdomonal x-ray....which was followed up by an abdomonal CT Scan.

What she told me the next day was that they THINK it may have been food poisoning.

What she told me last night is that the abdomonal x-ray and CT Scan show a "spot" on her liver. Which they think "could" be a cyst. But they honestly didn't know what it was. The emergency room doc recommended that she have a biopsy when she gets home.

I cannot accept that this could possibly be anything other than a cyst, a fat deposit, or some other harmless bit of nothing. This is my MOM. My family has enough crap to deal with from my issues, and shes the one that holds us all together.

So. Assuming that this is a whole lot of nothing, who does she see to confirm that? What type of doctor would she follow up with when returning from her trip? They gave her all of her x-rays/scans to bring home.

Where does she go from here?

[Fay A.]

Heather,

Gastroenterologist is the doc most often consulted for Liver Disorders. Sometimes folks will see an Endocrinologist. I can tell you from personal experience that hepatic cysts can be excrutiatingly painful. But so can an inflamed gallbladder, and an inflamed pancreas. Hope your Mom is home soon and they can find answers ASAP.

[chloesmom]

Heather,

I have read before that many, if not most, people when they reach a certain age have cysts on adrenal glands, liver, kidneys, and all kinds of internal organs. Most of them turn out to be harmless and we just go on living with them and they are only discovered incidently, as was the case with your mom.

But, when they are discovered, things need to be ruled out, especially with people who have our 'history.' Grrrrr, I hate that when I'm told that I need this or that because of my 'history', but it's true, I guess.

Like the wise Don Wood always says, 'don't borrow trouble.' I hope this turns out to just be a case of food poisoning with a common cyst on the liver.

Cindy

[Melinda]

Hebbie--

I'm afraid that I have no wisdom to impart. However, I will be praying that this spot is, indeed, simply:

a cyst, a fat deposit, or some other harmless bit of nothing.

Hang in there.

Melinda

[cindi o'h]

I was very ill with high liver enzymes once and appeared as a hepatitis, but it wasn't ABor C. I saw an internist, gastroenterologist, infectious disease specialist, but the one that calmed me down was the hepatologist... a member of the GI team who does only livers.

Cindi o'h

[Nushka]

Can't give you any info but wanted to say I hope your mom does great. Keeping my fingers crossed that it is only a benign cyst that will shrink up with some kind of medicine and give her no more trouble.

Nina

[RAY A]

Hay Heather,

Her throwing up sounds like food poison to me.

But I will say an extra prayer for your mom tonight.

As far as the spot, I got the feeling its just a cyst.

[donaf]

Heather,

I don't know if you heard about a flu-like illness that struck many hotel guests of the Las Vegas Flamingo. Were your parents there by any chance? I know the news said one of the symptoms was abdominal pain and many of the guests were throwing up in the hallways.

Martha

[SDianneB]

Check out a hemangioma -- lots of people have those, especially women. I have one too. When you start having so many tests and scans, they uncover things you never knew you had! That was one of them for me. They are benign cysts, but if they get big enough, can cause some problems.

This is the exact kind of thing I try to avoid -- getting so many tests and scans done that they show things like this that are incidental, yet they then get sidetracked with a bunch of other tests -- usually invasive. My fear is always that they get so sidetracked with that kind of stuff that by the time they get back to my real problem, they will have mucked it all up by leaving it so long! (Paranoia, anyone? )

Glad she's doing better, and hope she does even better and better. Maybe we just tend to forget that while we are concentrating so much on fighting cancer, we can and do still have "normal" ailments now and then.

Di

[kimblanchard]

Hi Heather, "spots" on livers are very common and rarely amount to anything. The safest and most accurate way to assess it would be a liver MRI. You wouldn't want to stick a needle in it if it is a hemangioma and an MRI can very reliably tell if it is a cyst, fat, hemangioma or biopsy worthy.