Health dramas, some bigger than others

Well, I’ve had – Teresa and I have had – our share of health drama since Christmas. Some of what follows you may have already read about in my last post, but this one at least brings quite a bit of information together in one spot.

First we realized that my feet were retaining a lot of water. In fact, it gradually turned out that much of my body was retaining water. The hepatologist (liver specialist), into whose domain this fell, conclude that the pills I was taking at home to get rid of this water just weren’t enough; I needed to be inpatient. That meant it was time to return to MSK’s Hospital, to which I was admitted as an inpatient late on Thursday December 27. It also meant, or at least underlined, that we wouldn’t be able to see my son Brian or his sons in the remainder of their short stay in New Jersey – not least because their other in-laws, in central Jersey, were nursing the (infectious!) ailments of their various small children.

So in we go to MSK. When we get up it is now Friday, December 28, and it gets increasingly clear that MSK is in no position to do a lot of aggressive care -- unless it's required urgently, in which case they are unstinting as ever -- over the weekend leading up to New Year’s Day on Tuesday, January 1. So we see a number of talented young doctors, who have more than one theory of what might be wrong (the most alarming, quickly disspelled, being congestive heart failure – don’t worry, I don’t have it!). Meanwhile everyone watched my water levels and I took intravenous diuretic (anti-water) medication. And Teresa slept each night in a singularly uncomfortable looking extend-out chair. Eventually the doctors decide that they think I’m getting better, though the blood test work attesting to this doesn't strike me as really that clearcut. By New Year's Day the action heats up; the senior doctors were back on the ward and more decisions could be made. One was to send me home, which they did. Fortunately we  had time to receive, before we left for home, a couple of very nice visits from friends who made the trip from Montclair or elsewhere in New York to say hello.

Of the personal saga of this hospitalization I won’t say much, though I mentioned discussing this side of things back in my previous post. So I won’t discuss the friendly Italian-American family across the bedroom curtain from us one night, except to say we liked them. And I won’t discuss the patient who was moved into the empty half of my room (on the other side of that curtain), and immediately turned out to have a very infectious disease producing rapid bouts of incontinence, except to say we wish him well and are grateful to MSK for very quickly getting Teresa and me to a safer room. And I also won’t take up the moment one afternoon when I woke from a nap – my most frequent activity, it seemed -- and heard two men in conversation, and gradually realized that one was the patient now on the other side of my curtain and the other was a priest taking his confession. Of what he confessed to, and for that matter of what the deacon asked, I’ll say no more, and hope that in doing so I am honoring religious and patient confidentiality.

Back at home two major developments take place. The first (which may have actually gotten started even before I returned to the hospital) is my entry, with Teresa's guidance, into the fashionista world: you know, the one in which young people, starting in 2002, wore Crock’s rubber shoes with holes in them. Putting the crocks on over socks, you wind up with polka dot feet. I mean, how cool is that?

You can get a view of them in one of the three images attached.  This is, actually, a big deal, because it marked the first time in some while that I’d been able to put shoes all the way on my feet and so wear shoes, any shoes, without causing more damage to my feet. Thank you, Teresa!

The second major development is that my feet, and the whole water issue, get better. It’s not quite fully resolved, but Teresa also gave me during-the-swelling and after-the-swelling photos which show pretty clearly how big a change took place. I appear to have shed about 20 pounds of water, with more still departing. It’s unnerving to see such a transformation take place, and all the more so because I don’t think the MSK physicians understand even now exactly which one of the liver's 400 functions had gone wrong or what has now gone right – but they seem to have found the missing link, and that is really good.

So we’ve been home for a week, since Tuesday, January 1. I still have very little energy – though Teresa has also gotten me a pair of bike pedals (which can be used  to push with your feet or your arms)  and I’m hoping that will help me get more exercise even on cold days. (If you ask me, there’ve been a lot of cold days lately, but my thinking that's so may be yet another liver symptom!). All this is enough for me to start focusing on my book a little more, and I have, though there are many MSK appointments in our future too, including three in the next two days.

Many thanks to everyone who’s been in touch; all your warm messages are very much appreciated.

And here, for the sake of science, are two more pictures. I can't figure out how to provide a spoiler alert here, so I'll just say: my feet in the first of these two photos are not very pretty!

During swelling: 

After swelling: