Update

[SDianneB]

(First things first -- Uncle Dave, I love reading your posts! Welcome, although I wish you didn't have to be here.)

ERCP done, washings all came back clean. Had one fairly large gallstone that they removed, and put a temporary stent into the bile duct. Had a LOT of bile backed up in there, and within a few hours after the procedure, my yellow skin began to return to pink! I couldn't tell anything had even been done to me. Didn't feel anything -- just groggy for a few hours after the procedure. Had the greatest GI doc ever -- really glad to have hooked up with him. He is now my 2nd favorite after the pulmonologist. The two of them seem to actually know the art of diagnostic medicine. Go figure.

I'm still healing somewhat from that, even though 3 weeks out. Doc says that pancreatitis doesn't just heal up overnight, neither would all the build up of bile in my system that was flowing through the wrong places. None of the docs, as the pulmonlogist put it yesterday, think that the "spots" on the liver mentioned in the last scans are worth breaking into a sweat over. They all agree that they are the same, benign spots, probably every day hemangioma, as when this started -- same place, same size, haven't done a thing for the better part of a year.

She does want to check out my adrenal gland (left) -- another bone of contention from the first. One scan report says one thing, the next says something different. I'm having a needle biopsy next Wednesday.

Now, get this. If the biopsy results come back negative, that means the gland is negative, or the exact spot where they put the needle is negative. Haha. Gotta love modern technology and modern medicine. It will be a CT guided biopsy done by an interventional radiologist, so hopefully s/he will have good aim and get a good sample. I'm ready to solve this, or at least take it off the buffet table of "possibles" for a while.

Now, my instinct about all this. This is about what I told the Oncologist yesterday. I think that when I started first having symptoms of the cholecystitis, they all got into a tizz thinking it was mets, and no one really paid attention to ME. Starting with the PCP, everyone just kept sending me down the line, finally to the oncologist who sent me to the GI doc. During all that, I was REALLY sick. As sick as I ever remember being in my life. And with all the shuffling around and waits between appointments to see the docs, I figure I was sick for at least 2 weeks, and probably more like 3 weeks longer than I should have been.

Even if there was a question of cancer, that would have been NO reason to have done the ERCP and relieved the bile duct and gallstone, THEN treat the cancer if they found it. (And they didn't.) Instead, everyone kept passing me along to the next one.

I'm still mixed as to whether I should have this biopsy or not, but have a week or so to mull it over. I told her that if it's negative, and I hear from her (which I will) that a negative result doesn't mean anything, then they will be proving to me from now on what they say they "think" I have before I'll be having any of their ubiquitous tests and scans.

I'm rather disgusted, if you couldn't tell with the medical profession. Or, I should say SOME of the people in the medical profession. Seems as though they order test after test, and if the tests don't show exactly what's wrong, they are stumped. It's like they don't teach Diagnostic Medicine 101 in medical school any more. Oh well.

So, that's where I am now. Feeling pretty good actually, compared to where I've been for over a month. Incidentally, my 91 year old mother has the same thing, except she has a lot of stones and her bile duct is stopped up with stones, so they will be taking hers out laparoscopically. She is on some meds to improve her heart rate a bit, then they will do the procedure. All in the family!

Hope you are all hanging in there. Anyone hear from sweet Alice? Schmaydee, how's it going with you?

Love and smunchy hugs to you all.

Di

[cindi o'h]

Well, I just gotta say, Di.. there is nothing boring about you. Lots of excitement always...just not always the best kind of excitement. I am glad that you liked your GI doc.. I think that doc probably only does ERCP's as a subspecialty...you know one of those that are like top top top in the class all around. Least when I almost had an ERCP, that is who was going to do mine. Only does ERCP's ....!

I have a feeling that you compare your docs to your Dad. That is a tough place to be when you had a good dad doc. Dangit and thank God. I had a granny that was a top RN and hospital administrator. Not that I learned anything about medicine from her but, I know usually right from wrong.

I think alot of our problems as far as getting the shuffling treatment is that medicine is so specialized. That the specialists consider often their realm and have not the expertise beyond. But, try to find a good internist...!!! That is where I get hung up and that may be part of your problem also. The good ones here don't take new patients. The others...I don't know. Just trouble and off the wall thinking too much of the time.

Yes. Isn't that Uncle Doug a hoot! I will have to watch and see what is going on.

Good as always to hear from you, Di. You are quite a tenacious bugger. By the way, adrenal glands...how big are they anyway? Small, yeah?

Good luck with your decision. What are the risks of a needle biopsy? Other than if it is negative just still a question? Can't they open you wide up and see (like they used to do in the old days? hahahaha)

love and smuffs!

Cindi o'h