NO MALIGNANCY!!!!!!!!!

What a HUGE relief!!! Exclamation points do not do justice to the relief we feel. It turns out this mass is a collection of normal liver cells. Nothing malignant. Diseased, cirrhotic, bile-filled, but only liver cells, not cancer cells. The samples taken showed a lot of scarring (cirrhosis) and a lot of bile. They think that some of the passes made to take the biopsies nicked the cysts she has. Those are mostly bile-filled, thus the bile in the samples. It also possibly explains her fever better. When a person has a liver biopsy, bile free radicals are released. For some, this bile causes problems. This looks like the case with Shelby since there was so much bile in her samples. So the game plan with her PICC line has changed a bit. We are to continue IV antibiotics until tomorrow evening. She is on vancomycin and zosyn. She should be getting a dose right now, but that's the next paragraph. She will have doses again at 2 a.m., 5 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. If we hear tomorrow that her blood cultures are o.k., then the 9 p.m. dose will be her last. If the culture grows something, then she'll continue on IV antibiotics. If she's done with the antibiotics, her PICC line will stay in for a week. It was originally going to get pulled on Friday, but now, because of the findings on the biopsy of so much bile and the suspicion that its causing problems they want to see how her body responds to a week of no antibiotics. So far, she's only made it 5 days off the IV antibiotics before spiking a temp. She is still having pain from the biopsy site, but mostly in her right shoulder area. She decided she had enough of the dressing and pulled it off tonight. Those little holes were not as little as I had imagined.

I was going to write about the problems we've had with our home health supplies provider, Walgreens Option Care, but now I'm too tired. It will be a long night of set alarms to get all this med in. Until tomorrow...