Cirrhosis

Ma was in surgery from 7:50-9:30 Saturday morning. That's twice as long as her first surgery. The surgeon, Dr. Stanten, said that Ma's CT scan showed she has liver cirrhosis, and that's probably what's causing the fluid build-up. The fluid is pushing through her diaphram and into the lung area.

For now, Ma is in the CPU (Cardio-Pulmonary Unit), similar to the ICU. She has two tubes coming out of her chest again. This time she has a PCA (Patient-Controlled Analgesia), a device that lets Ma self-administer her own pain medication with a push of a button. She is getting Dilaudid through the PCA. She was given Zofran for nausea just once, so I told her to tell the nurse immediately if she starts feeling nausea after the Zofran wears off. In addition, she gets shots of another painkiller called Toradol every few hours. Between the PCA and Toradol, maybe she'll have better pain control this time.

Ate Eva & Raymond stopped by with some food -- lugaw, okoy and pancit palabok. Ma is on a liquid diet though and was really disappointed she couldn't eat the food.

Kit flew home yesterday. Since we knew Ma would spend most of the time sleeping right after surgery, Pa & I took went ahead and took Kit to the airport ourselves and kept her company till it was time to go through security. The food at the International Terminal is actually pretty good. We had lunch over there -- noodle soup with BBQ duck, unagi bowl, and sushi (soft-shell crab, unagi rolls and salmon skin rolls).

I failed to mention before that Ma's previous CT scans and PET scans showed cirrhosis. No one ever suggested doing anything about it, maybe because her breast cancer is more important. Ma has tested negative for hepatitis, so I don't know how she ended up with cirrhosis. Hmm, is Ma a closet drinker??? The only symptom she seems to have is edema. Maybe she can see a liver specialist on Monday.

Here's where I get confused. Ma's breast cancer did not cause the cirrhosis. The cirrhosis caused the pleural effusion. Her pleural effusion is probably not malignant then, just as her tests always indicate. Does this mean all these problems she's been having have nothing to do with breast cancer?