Thursday, November 27, 2008

Minor complications

I haven't yet finished the piece I need to sumbit tomorrow. I have barely started it in fact so this is a quickie.

We did get some smiles today (as you can see in the post below) but it has been another day full of reminders that the recovery from a transplant can be unpredictable and rocky at times. Wills woke this morning in much less pain but very drowsy and breathing over 60 times a minute. I was a tad worried and, once again, the answers were in the blood test results. He has 'acidosis', his blood is too acidic. He has had an infusion of sodium bicarb to correct it and is now having a phosphate infusion as his levels are low. It is normal for the body to need some time to rebalance after transplant. Wills is just taking a little longer to get there. His kidney function is a bit down, not surprising given the huge amount of meds he is on. One thing that is confusing the team is that his liver enzymes have taken a bit of a high jump. They didn't do anything to his liver so we don't know what that is all about. I am anxiously waiting the repeat test results in the hope they are not so bad. If they are, he will have an ultra sound tomorrow in case it is a surgical complication.

A quick google (always dangerous in these circumstances) threw up the possibility of graft versus host disease. This is unlikely as William had another stoma biopsy today and that was fine. His output is virtually non existent though so I am concerned about disruption to his bilious flow. I must stop worrying as this could all be nothing. I do rather think it may have something to do with restarting TPN and having fat every day. We only had it 3 times a week to protect his liver. He is not on the liver protecing drugs either (the lovely 'urso'). It is hard not to worry about possibilities and just take it as it comes. We are in a specialist liver unit so in the right place. Trust William to throw up his own unique little complication!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lovely to see the first smile.

SherryB

Aunty P said...

I'm sure they are all just blips - its a major op and everything needs to settle again. The smile makes everything worth it.
Pauline

Anonymous said...

Hope you get your piece written and a good nights sleep too!
Sorry to hear Wills has hit some blips,hope they are sorted out quickly!
I know the need to thank his donor family,I sent my 1st card about 4 months post tx.
big hugs
Cat x

Rebecca said...

Sarah, you sound as if you are coping with it all amazingly well hun. Really hope you can get some answers soon, and that William overcomes these blips very soon.

Big hugs to you and to William,

Becky xxx

craftyclaire said...

Thinking of you all. I do hope that William is soon feeling better, you will all feel better then. Great to see him drinking from his thomas cup and smiling.
God Bless,
Claire.

Tinypoppet said...

Hi Sarah,

There wasn't an organ in my body that didn't go haywire after my transplant!

My kidneys, liver and heart all showed signs of stress and scared the monkeys out of my family (and some of the docs I reckon!)

Needless to say everything is fine now :)

Like Aunty P said, it's a major op and very unsurprising that some other organs are thowing a bit of a wobbly.

huge hugs

xxx

meme said...

Glad that William managesd a smile.
You all are in my thoughts and prayers,
Maria and Michael