Met with the Surgeon, Have a Plan

Have I mentioned that we have been to Dell Children's and its surrounding campus every day this week??

I met the Pediatric General Surgeon this morning, Dr. M. 

After talking with him, I have to say that I finally feel confident that everything will be ok.

I've been spending a lot of time bouncing around the different grief stages, staying mostly in "anger", but hopefully now I can accept the situation at hand and move on.

Weston will have laparoscopic surgery on Wednesday. They will take the liver biopsy and try to do the cholangeogram (where they try to shoot dye through the gallbladder) at this time. If they are unable to perform the cholangeogram, due to destruction of the duct system, aka Biliary Atresia (BA), he will then open his abdomen and perform the Kasai procedure right then and there. 

So, Wednesday we will finally know if it is BA and if so, it will be "fixed" right then.

Dr. M had some encouraging information regarding Weston and his prognosis, should he have BA. Weston's liver is still soft and it appears that he is moving some bile into his intestine (judged on the color of his poopy diapers). While this is not enough to say he is out of the woods for BA, it is promising that IF it is BA, the disease is not as advanced and he has an increased chance for the procedure being successful.

Old research broke the prognosis post Kasai procedure into thirds: a third of kids would basically be "cured" by the procedure and not have any issues; a third would do well for a while, but would ultimately need a liver transplant at some point in life; a third would not be helped by the Kasai procedure and need a liver transplant right away. Dr. M said that recently the total success rate for the procedure has increased some.

One more day of vitamin K injections. Dr. Z (GI doc) and his nurse have been very good to us, as well. His nurse has spent a lot of time with me and I feel very supported and that they really are concerned about Weston.