5/17/08
While no stents were required in Judy's ureters (the tubes between her kidneys and bladder), her kidneys are having some difficulty absorbing the contrast dies from the various test procedures.

She is getting quite sore and is still on pain medications for the pancreatitis.

She was released to come home from the hospital around 3:30 PM.

They left the midline (deep IV) in just in case they need to do additional procedures. Judy is hoping that it will last long enough to get at least one chemotherapy treatment early next week. (A regular IV is usually good for about 72 hours. However, hers were collapsing in less than 12 hours. So they decided to put in a highly sterile midline, which can last up to two weeks.) The midline has to be flushed with a saline solution and heprine every day. The Cancer center gave me three days of heprine, but only one day of saline. So I tried to buy two more days a local pharmacy. They did not carry the saline solution, so I ended up going to the American Fork Hospital and begging the extra two days.

They did not put her back on her blood thinners (for her heart), just in case they needed to do additional procedures or take additional biopsies after they got the pathology reports back. (It takes a week to get off the blood thinners.) That meant that she had to go back on those painful belly shots of Lovenox to keep her blood from clotting. (She had already had one clot after the heart stents. This was about a month ago and was in her calf. So, in addition to the Plavix, they had to put her on Coumadin. Both are generally thought to be blood thinners, but are actually anti-coagulants.)

She is very sore and very tired and will probably sleep the rest of the afternoon and evening.