Better news!

And the wife acts as the secretary again as the husband lies in the hospital...

This morning Jan Arne went to the hospital early in the morning for the CT scan. After 10 am I got a phone call, of course just when I was in the shower washing my hair (was not at work as my doctor put me on two days of sick leave as I am pretty much unable to work because of the stress caused by this situation).

Jan Arne had phoned me so I phoned back a while later and Jan Arne handed his phone directly to the doctor (the same one we saw on Tuesday) and she said right away "GOOD NEWS. The CT scan showed the metastases in the liver have actually gotten smaller, and the obstruction in the bile ducts is caused by a stricture". Say what?? For some reason the ultrasound didn't give a very good idea of the state of the liver this time. Haven't seen the scan report so don't know more about it now but we'll fill in the blanks in this blog later on. The CEA (cancer marker) value was up a bit from February but that can well be because of the condition with the bile ducts.

They put Jan Arne directly to a line up for the stenting operation, or so I thought. This is where it gets a bit unclear for me, I thought they'd put in an internal stent (i.e. placed inside the biliary duct as a support structure to keep it open) but Jan Arne phoned me in the evening and said he now has a PTC, a percutaneous biliary drainage (google for it if you wish to know more) which is a permanent or a temporary external drain to drain the bile out of the liver. I'll go to the hospital tomorrow to find out more why this solution. Whatever, if it works, and the husband will return to his usual pinkish colour, I'm happy.

Hopefully Jan Arne will get home tomorrow. He says it is painful to move and especially to walk but I hope it will get better soon. Life after operations, even the smaller ones, tends to be a bit painful unfortunately.

And last but not least, a huge thank you to all of you out there around the world for all the positive thoughts and prayers once again, keep doing what you are doing :)