Cleveland Clinic 3-20-15

I'd like to first thank everyone for their kind words of encouragement and prayers. It means so much to us. I post updates about Rick's condition on my Facebook because it's too difficult to call and text everyone who asks. If you feel it's too often or get tired of seeing them, I will not be offended if you unfriend or unfollow me.

My time is consumed with Rick's care and my days are scheduled around that. This is unfortunately a day to day process which is difficult to accept for a control freak like myself. There are times I get overwhelmed which I then get upset at myself about because Rick has it so much worse. He's the 1 in the hospital bed. He's the 1 that's getting poke, prodded, pushed on and sedated, sick and in pain. I'm glad that he's resting today and sleeping. We thought things were looking up when they let him come home. That was until we got home and he pulled out 1 of his drains and we had to go back. He was out for literally home for 5 minutes and then we had to take him back. 

The Dr.'s just don't have answers. Right now his bilirubin is up and so is his alkaline phosphotate which has to do with his liver. They had gone down and there has been no fever or other symptoms of liver problems. (jaundice, itching) They used a scope to do an internal ultrasound to see if they needed to do an ERCP on Monday and found it was not necessary. Yesterday they tried to do it again because his labs went up again but they couldn't get in far enough to put in the stent into his bile duct due to swelling. I try to ask questions and do research online which leads me to more questions. He's already had 7 drains put in, 3 were replaced due to being pulled out. He has blood clots which they added filters. I just spoke with the PA and she is going to check to see if they can start using his left arm again for blood draws and IV's. His poor right arm is just beat up. He has had a stent placed between his stomach and pancreas to help drain the pancreas. He's gotten thrush from so many antibiotics which led to an additional medication. He just got back from having an ultra sound and CT. They need to see if the drains are still in proper placement. Now I get to wait for those tests and hope and pray it's not organ failure.