The day before surgery . . .

Tonight we are spending the night at Adam's mom and dad's house. They live about 30 miles closer to the hospital so we figured that it would be easier to get there in the morning from here instead of from our house. I'm actually glad that tomorrow is Martin Luther King, JR day so the traffic will be lighter since we are going to Virgina Mason in Seattle.

My biggest concern is that the pain seems to have gone down quite a bit in the last couple of days. In fact, I haven't needed a pain med sense Thursday morning. I know that this seems like good news, and it is . . . however it may mean that there is nothing for them to "find" tomorrow during the surgery.

One of the hypothesis the last specialist had was that I had liver stones blocking the drainage of the bile (the liver juices that dump into the intestine). If I had one it would hurt like, well, like I've been hurting. If I passed it, there would be no proof that it even ever existed (cuz' it would be in my poo) so in all reality it would just be an educated guess, nothing that could be confirmed, other than diminishing pain.

My pain could be in a lull though, so I'll go through with the procedure tomorrow anyway. After all this mess, I'd hate to make the wrong decision now and have to wait another month just to get to this point again only to find out that my body took a little break for some unknown reason. I mean the pain is still there, but light compared to earlier. I actually went to church this morning! AND didn't have to wear elastic pants!

So, my specific prayer request is three-fold. First, I hope that they can reach the junction between the bile duct and the liver (since no one else seems to have been able to). Second, I hope they actually SEE something that they can point to as the source of my pain. Third, I hope they can repair it during the procedure tomorrow. I'm not too worried about how my body will respond, I'm a pretty tough cookie, but if you have an extra few seconds, that would be a good thing to as God for, too.

The schedule tomorrow is this: 6:45 am check-in, 7:00 meet with the new specialist, 8:00 meet with the anesthesiologist for pre-op, and 9:00am go in for surgery. I'm not sure how long the procedure will last, but the last procedure kind-of like this took almost two hours from start to finish and they only made it halfway up the bile duct. . .they think. I'm assuming this will take a little longer than that failed attempt, hee-hee.

So, I've asked Adam to post something here when he is updated; after he calls my mom and dad of course! I'll be at the hospital at least until Tuesday so it might be a few days before I can do this blog myself.

Thanks again for everything, guys and gals! I love you all!