Saturday, March 21st 4:00 PM

Dad is now undergoing temporary dialysis to rid his body of built up toxins. To me his color looks better and his swelling seems to have gone down a very little. The liver doctor just came by and advised us that there is no blockage by vascular as he can tell by ultrasound but the liver does show abnormalities in respect to tissue. Still not sure why. Did say from previous scan in Dec there had been some deterioration... again, not sure why. He said once he is more stable, if labs do not improve showing liver improvement then they will biopsy thru the jugular catheter in his neck. He said if they found a blocked duct then they could do a procedure called ERCP but he is not stable enough to do all that just yet.

[ERCP] stands for endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. As hard as this is to say, the actual exam is fairly simple. A dye is injected into the bile and pancreatic ducts using a flexible, video endoscope. Then x-rays are taken to outline the bile ducts and pancreas. The liver produces bile, which flows through the ducts, passes or fills the gallbladder and then enters the intestine (duodenum) just beyond the stomach. The pancreas, which is six to eight inches long, sits behind the stomach. This organ secretes digestive enzymes that flow into the intestine through the same opening as the bile. Both bile and enzymes
are needed to digest food.

Now his blood pressure is 113/55 and it is bouncing around within a 10 pt radius on both ends. He seems to be a little confused from being in the bed so long, however with dad you never know, he might just be playing. He spirits seem to be good but he has his moments like when I came in this morning and gave him a hug, he didn't want to let go but hey that's fine with me =)