Endoscopy

 Larry went in for an endoscopy last Wednesday. They have never done one before because there is a high risk of it irritating the pancreas and causing another pancreatic attack. Because the pancreas is necrotizing (dying) the surgeon placed a stint in the badly misshapen pancreatic duct in hopes of helping the pancreas to drain and facilitate the body's ability to heal. He thought that he might be able to perform the endoscopy without removing the feeding tube, but he ended up having to remove the tube and did not replace it. 

He suggested that Larry wait 24 hrs and then start drinking water, followed by juice, pudding etc. I personally did not think this was a good idea, but the Dr thought the stint might help him be able to digest food. His findings from the endoscopy were that Larry's pancreas was like cottage cheese, the pancreatic duct was extremely deformed, and he was concerned about what he looked like we're a couple of tumors or growths. He did not biopsy them for fear of spreading cancer if they were cancerous. 

The eating thing did not go well and by Fri afternoon Larry had gone back into a full blown attack (I knew he was in trouble when he went for a pain patch because he only uses them as a very last resort). We knew he needed fluids, pain control, and some kind of feeding tube put back in. We decided to get out of the IHC loop and come down to the U of U to get a second opinion. We have been here since last night and Larry will be here for at least a few days. 

There will be a team of GI specialists meeting with him in the next day or two to hopefully get to the root of all of this and help us out together a sustainable plan. After doing another scan they do not seem to think there were tumors (super good, bit extremely confusing news). There were, however, some answers on the liver that they wanted to look at and there was another blood clot which seems to be par for the pancreatitis course. The night before Larry went into the surgery he was given a beautiful blessing of healing and that the Drs would be led and guided. Those are the blessings and promises that we are holding onto. We feel all of your love and concern and appreciate it more.than you will ever know.♥️

FYI We got to the ER about 7 pm last night, but he was not admitted to the hospital until 4 am. After a very long night in a pretty trashy emergency room and a dinky exam room with just a chair for me to sit in I was looking forward to sleeping on the couch in the room that the nurse had told me about. Unfortunately, she was misinformed and I was not allowed to stay the night. I was so tired I just ended up sleeping in the parking garage in the Prius. I just ran the car for 4 Hrs so I would have heat (luckily it doesn't take any gas running like that) and I just turned on conference and tried to sleep.🙄 I got special permission to stay tonight because of the weather, but I will be going home in the morning and will probably come back Monday morning.