Weekend Update 11/5/2016

View from Geri's room yesterday

Thanks to everyone for their concern and best wishes. Sorry I'm so behind on responding to messages. I hope you won't mind a blog/Facebook update for now. Yesterday, they did a thoracentesis and drained 1.5 liters of fluid from Geri's chest cavity, which allowed her lung to expand again and gave her some relief. Now today they're supposed to go in and try to open up the TIPS (transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt) in her liver. They installed it late last year when she was so sick and for around eleven months she was feeling somewhat better, but it's no longer working. There are risks to messing with it (for example, doing so can cause her liver to fail more rapidly). But those risks are less than the risks of other possible solutions to the severe fluid retention and other problems that are drastically lowering her quality of life. Our hope is that they can open the TIPS back up without incident and she'll return to feeling better like she did for much of the past year (though that's a temporary fix) and remain healthy enough to proceed with the liver transplant process.

In other news, my grandson Camren was also at the Cleveland Clinic yesterday, for surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids.  That went well, though the poor fellow is not happy about it.

Finally, today is my dad's 72nd birthday.  Happy day to you! <3