One more procedure and then home (I hope)

The procedures we were planning on doing last Wednesday had a bit of a hiccup.  The urologist was able to insert the left stent with no problem but the right stent would not go.  Finally, they called in an interventional radiologist and put a percutaneous nephrostomy tube in the right kidney.

Perc tubes are something I have been fighting for a couple of years but it finally had to happen this time.  The hope is that, during tomorrows procedure, they will get the right stent in and the perc tube can be removed once scar tissue has formed to seal the bond (about 6 weeks).

Of course, the second part of the procedure was set to go but, as they transferred me to the other OR, I went into a mini carcinoid crisis.  Blood pressure dropped and this is bad for the kidneys so we are hoping that they rebound over the next week.  They did end up doing the scoping through the rectum of the tumors and it was determined that they are too far away to be treated with nanoknife.

So, tomorrow morning, at 7am, we try to get the right ureteral stent installed from either above or below.  Hopefully this is a non eventful procedure as I have started on the sandostatin tonight and should have saturated all of the tumors.  If the stent goes in, they will inject some tracer through the perc tube and determine if the perc tube can be capped off at this point or it needs to remain open to drain the kidney.

Looking to the future, Dr. Boudreaux is also proposing addressing the tumor mass by injecting them with alcohol.  This is a technique used to ablate liver tumors and has the possibility of shrinking this tumor mass.  Otherwise, the only way to deal with it is a lengthy open surgery to get down to those tumors.  The nano knife that was planned cannot be done because the tumors are too far away to reach with the needles.

So, we sit and wait today for the procedure tomorrow.  My limbs are swollen from additional fluid and we will start some diuretics today to try and reign in that swelling.  Hopefully back in the Springs by Wednesday!