Today we spent from 8 am to about 8 pm in the emergency room at Portneuf hospital in Pocatello. At the end of the day Larry ended up being admitted to the hospital and I came home to with the children.
For about two months Larry's has gradually been having more and more pain in his digestive area, to the point where he has no desire to eat. At first we thought it was possibly tumors causing him pain, we also thought maybe he needed to change his diet, and most recently we thought maybe he had ulcers. We even went to to the ER a couple of weeks ago in Logan and they were not able to identify any foundational problems and just sent him home with some medicine to coat his stomach. It was helpful occasionally, but did not address the foundational problem.
Last night when I got home from Bekah's dance competition Nate came and got me and ask me to check on Larry because he said that dad had been acting funny and was not well. I went and found him hunched over in pain, which happens often, but I guess he had been like that for most of the day and Nate knew that was not normal.😓 I ask Larry if he wanted me to take him to the ER, but he thought he could get through it by taking some pain meds. It gets really discouraging when you go to the ER time and time again and come home without any concrete answers.
This morning he got up to get ready for bishopric meeting. He is the 1st counselor in our ward and it was his turn to conduct the meeting today. He was especially determined to be there because the Bishop's brother had tragically passed away the day before and he really wanted to be there to support him. I could hear him getting ready to leave for his 6 am bishopric meeting and then leave the house. He came back in shortly after leaving asking if I knew where the key fob was for the car because when he went to start it, it wouldn't start and the light told him that the key was missing. He came in went through my purse with no luck and then ask me to go through my purse and I couldn't find it either. He went back out to the car and the key fob was sitting right where it was supposed to be and the car started right up.
He came into the house just beside himself, got very emotional and ask me to take him to the ER. He felt like the whole key fob situation was a sign from God that he wasn't supposed to go to his meeting and needed to go to the ER. As we were both feeling somewhat frustrated and discouraged we played uplifting gospel music on our way to the hospital to try and lift our spirits. It was also very windy on our drive and I had to drive about 20 mph under the speed limit so it took a little longer than normal to get there.
Thankfully, the staff were very welcoming when we got there and we were able to get right in. The first thing they did when we got there was get Larry hooked up to an iv and drew blood. They were also able to get his pain under control which was such a relief to both of us. The highlight of our day was being able to watch sacrament meeting shortly after we got there over zoom. Today was an exceptionally uplifting meeting and we gained much strength from listening to the testimonies that were born about Jesus Christ and his plan of happiness.
He ended up having both a CT with dye and an MRI done. The blood work showed that his liver numbers were very elevated and his bilirubin numbers were starting to climb. Given the combination of the lab and scan findings they believe that he has blockage in his biliary stint that his causing him so much pain and trouble with digestion. He is scheduled for an ERCP tomorrow where they will go in with a scope and take a closer look at what is going on and hopefully be able to easily correct the problems. We are still hopeful and praying that he will still be able to start chemo on Tuesday. We are grateful to all of the wonderful nurses and doctors today who took such wonderful care of us and were extremely thorough in their evaluations.
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