Thought I would pass on “it can happen to anyone” story. Only with a wife who is a nurse consultant on difficult injuries and illnesses, and having worked in health care myself for decades, never thought it would happen to me.
Back in early January went into excruciating stomach pain for hours. Wife finally drug me to the ER. Symptoms of passing gallstones. But to be sure, took a CT scan. Upon reviewing the images, radiologist reported 'no evidence of gallstone, however liver is enlarged, two areas of perfusion within the liver are noted, and presence of large gastric varices noted."
Holy crap.
First off, never been much of a drinker, couple glasses of wine after work, quit that years ago, don’t drink anything alcoholic, and never did hard drugs.
Gastric varices are caused by Portal Hypertension, which happens when the liver is either in later stages of cirrhosis, or the portal vein going through the liver, which returns blood from your stomach to the heart, is being blocked by tumors. And areas of perfusion means the internal tissue is denser then the surrounding tissue, typical of tumors. obviously not good.
So off to see a surgeon, another CT scan for dye liver function test, a HIDA scan (I now glow in the dark) and tons of bloodwork. Surgeon says 'your blood work is all good, which is perplexing, because you have all the radiological evidence of someone with either well advanced cirrhosis of the liver, or more likely, you have two tumors within your liver."
“Is my entire liver enlarged? No, just the largest node right under your rib cage and sternum. Well, I did break two ribs there 20 years ago on a shallow reef while surfing and spit up blood for a week, could we be looking at the results of a lacerated liver having healed by overgrowing tissue to surround the damaged area. Hmm interesting thought, doubt it. So best case scenario? We hope for beign tumors, resect the liver, probably radiation treatment, good prognosis to keep on living for 5 to 10 more years. And the not so good? If cancerous tumors, come up with a battle plan, realistically you may have a year , maybe more, maybe less.”"
Now that’s a wake-up call. 63, recently retired, with lotsa plans.
So now gotta tell the kids, all upset, and long talks with my wife on best place for her in case the road does end soon. Make arrangements to have an in-law unit built on my daughters 10 acres outside Spokane if necessary, being with my daughter and grandkids be best thing if I pass, they love her madly, hella active household, and it would be good for her.
Ok, now time for needle biopsy of the liver, take multiple biopsy samples. Big fun.
Liver biopsies come back. “’ great news, no tumors, no cirrhosis. So we still don’t know the cause of the varices. By the way, based on the size of them, you shouldn’t be doing any strenuous exercise, if they rupture you’ll bleed out quickly, 40% of patients with large varices will die within one year of diagnosis. So now you need to see a GI doctor to see if he can find out the cause of the varices, and what operations he’ll want us to perform to try and eliminate the varices, which are very difficult to treat.”
I just keep on surfing 3 or 4 days a week. Wife not too stoked by that. We identify the best GI doctor to handle the next phase. Out of insurance plan unfortunately. We decide to see him anyway and suck up the costs.
Great guy, massive positive energy, the doc all the other docs go to for GI issues of their own. He goes through everything, fully perplexed. Schedules me for a test that only he performs in this part of the state. “reccomend you don’t surf until we can repair the varices.” So I keep on surfing. Decide whatever happens happens, just meant to be.
All right, all down to one more test, and we find out what is what finally. So he runs a mini-scope down my stomach and actually into the portal and splenic veins, looks throughout the vascular system for a blockage that could cause the varices, needs to find the cause to figure how how to treat them.
Middle of the test, he has been looking around everywhere, calls up the chief radiologist of the hospital, tells him to get on his computer, send over the real time imagery of the test he’s conducting.
“what do you see? Radiologist replies looks like a tortous splenic vein. Much more prominent then usual. Yep, just the way his splenic vein runs, and your radiologists misread this as gastric varices. Oh shit, seriously? Yep.”
Wake up, dazed, wife nearly in tears. WTF? That bad? She says the doc came into the consulting room after the procedure dancing like a kid at Xmas. No varices, no nothing, healthy as could possibly be inside. Thinks the liver was injured by the broken ribs and responded by overgrowing to encapsulate the damage. has to think I passed some gallstones back in January, and everything since then all driven by a radiologist misinterpreting what he saw on the CT images. 2 times.
Sitting in the passenger seat on the way back to the coast. we’re both dazed.
4 months of uncertainty, $25,000 in medical bills, $8,000 out of our pocket, thinking it could likely be the end of the road a hell of a lot sooner then expected for months.
Wrong diagnosis. Time to get pissed off, write letters, heat up in the control room? NFW. Just got a get out of jail card. The most intensive internal diagnostics performed possible. Declared absolutely healthy, fit and good to go. I’m beyond stoked, I’m, friggin ecstatic. Onshore slop? Hell yea, I’m out there!
Ordered two new boards, been getting some fun waves here in town. Salmon are stacking up outside, soon they will be in the river and the fly rod will be coming out. Absolutely adoring my youngest son’s new daughter down in the bay area, can’t see her enough. Wife is retiring in a couple of months, and we’ve got plans.
Life is good, really good. Enjoy every damn moment of it. I know I will.
