Sis-in-law in the hospital

naunga · September 15th, 2005, 14:51

Last night my sister in law was admitted to the hospital with severe backpain.

They did a CAT scan a discovered two masses. One on her kidney and the other on her liver.

They think that the one on her kidney is just due to a raging infection, but they have comfirmed that the mass on her liver is a tumor. Whether or not it's cancerous or not remains to be seen. We can only hope that it's not.

This girl can't seem to catch a break...

At like 13 she was in a horrible snowmobile accident which shattered her knee and broke her leg in several places. To this day she has a huge rod in her leg.

At the beginning of this year her father died at 50 something.

Shortly after that her grandfather passed away.

They have almost zero income, even though she works 100 hours a least a week, and no medical insurance.

Now this...

My wife is a mess too, because all of the stuff mentioned above has taken it's toll on her.

So please keep her in your thoughts. We're hoping on Big D tomorrow morning and flying up.

Later all.

Naunga

scoobs · September 15th, 2005, 19:05

Definitly sad to hear. My family has had 5 deaths in the past year. And only 2 were expected. Hopefully she gets better.

EatSleepFly · September 16th, 2005, 12:01

Sorry to hear that, naunga. Hope everything works out for the best. Take care...

SteveC · September 16th, 2005, 12:28

Thinking of you all. Hoping and praying things turn out well.

Kristie · September 16th, 2005, 13:20

we'll be thinking of you all...let us know if you/she needs anything - we'd be glad to help!!

naunga · September 16th, 2005, 16:28

Thanks for the prayers and good thoughts.

Keep 'em coming, because I think they're working.

We got into Toledo and made it to the hospital.

In that time they put her on some major antibiotics and have actually started to see some improvement (fever gone, swelling down, white count down) with the infection in her kidney.

They still aren't really sure what is up with her liver. So right this moment she's getting an MRI and they'll probably do a biopsy on Monday.

The good news is that the doctor does not believe the tumor to be cancerous.

So like I said things are improving.

Thanks again guys.

Naunga

Doug Taylor · September 17th, 2005, 02:21

Naunga, bro, as usual, if there's anything that my wife or I can do for you, consider it done.

I think that goes for 99.999% of us on jetcareers.

Just let us know, bro!

flygirl813126 · September 17th, 2005, 09:09

Postive thoughts are headed your way.

Bandit_Driver · September 17th, 2005, 22:37

she is our prayers...

naunga · September 19th, 2005, 12:37

Finally a moment to breathe...

After a scare on Saturday things are...well I don't know that they're better, but we have more information and the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight (just hope it's not an oncoming train).

Some idiot nurse told her that something was wrong with her pancreas which of course freaked her out, and in turn freaked us out.

That nurse was sent home shortly after that...wonder why. Sheesh.

Anyway, the whole picture is this:

She has a cyst on her kidney, which was infected. They've gotten rid of the infection and the cyst probably was always there. The doctors said that something like 10-15% of the general population has cysts like that on their kidneys and never know it.

Then onto the liver...

She has a tumor about the size of a softball on the left lobe of her liver. This is causing her a lot of pain, which thankfully is being managed (drugs, drugs, and more drugs).

The good news is that at this point it is benign, but they're doing a biopsy today just to confirm it. They think it was caused by her birth control pills, and after about of month of being off them it should start to go away on it's own. Of course given the size and the location of it they may do surgery just to spare her months of pain, but that will be minor and may even just consist of an injection into the tumor.

On a personal note...

I was talking with the Mrs. Saturday and told her how amazed I was and continue to be by the people who hang out here. I can count on one hand how many of you I've met personally, but I know without a doubt if I needed anything, a flight, buddy passes, money, anything someone here would've stepped up to do what they could.

From sending care packs to Iraq to matching donations to the hurricane victims, you guys (and gals) are the best.

I'm bummed that I'm going to have to miss Vegas due to my upcoming ankle surgery, but I'm going to do everything in my power to be there next year...partly because I think Lloyd owes me a beer for the Santa Hat on his avatar

...seriously, I can think of no other bunch of ...to borrow from the Brits... blokes I'd rather hang with in Vegas.

My wife and I thank you guys so much for the good thoughts and prayers.

You guys rock

Naunga

Kristie · September 19th, 2005, 20:12

tumor on her liver due to BCP's? i've never heard of that and i've been on them for geez, going on 15 years! how long has she been on them? how'd they figure that out? does that mean she can't continue on her BCP's then or is ok to try another BCP drug type? what type was she on?

very glad to hear it's benign but again, i wonder how they could deduce that without the biopsy first?

is she still in the hospital then or did they let her out?

mtsu_av8er · September 20th, 2005, 01:56

You're gonna get your beer!!!

naunga · September 20th, 2005, 09:28

[ QUOTE ]
tumor on her liver due to BCP's? i've never heard of that and i've been on them for geez, going on 15 years! how long has she been on them? how'd they figure that out? does that mean she can't continue on her BCP's then or is ok to try another BCP drug type? what type was she on?

very glad to hear it's benign but again, i wonder how they could deduce that without the biopsy first?

is she still in the hospital then or did they let her out?

[/ QUOTE ]
She's been on them on them for about a year or two. Apparently liver tumors are a side effect of the BCP's, albeit rare.

They haven't really determined that the BCP's are the cause, but based on her age, the fact that she's on the pill, and past experiences with other patients they concluded that must be the cause. So they have taken her off them and are going to reevaluate the tumor in about a month. If it has begun to shrink, then that was the problem. If not, well they probably won't know the cause, but they remove it.

And yes she can't ever be on BCP's again. They talked about IUD's, diaphrams, and good ol' fashioned condoms (I learned more about my SIL than she ever wanted me to.

).

Finally the biopsy is just to determine if it's cancerous or not. It won't give them any insight into the cause of the tumor.

Anyhow, just an update. They did the biopsy, but she wanted to remain conscious. As a consequence she was in severe pain last night. I mean they had her on morphine, oxycontin, and tylonol 3. Then she didn't get to go home last night either.

But like I said, things are still looking up.

Naunga