I just spoke with Briana at 8:45 this morning. Rick is so much better at passing along information than I am, but he’s teaching this morning and I wanted to let you all know as soon as possible what is going on with Briana. We didn’t speak long as the doctor came in to check her so we had to hang up.
I asked her how she felt and she said “Lousy!” She had a bad night and she told me this is the worse pain she’s ever experienced – much worse than her last surgery. She does feel like she’s a lot better this morning because they are giving her lots of medicine and keeping her pretty much sedated. She says she feels like she’s been sleeping for 24 hours but definitely needs more!
She said they are keeping her in ICU for at least another day. Her platelet count is really low and she is draining blood. They apparently have had to give her numerous transfusions.
She expounded on what Eric told us yesterday regarding why the surgery took so long. She said there was so much scar tissue that they had to cut through to get to the liver that it took them a long time. The doctor said that because there is so much oozing going on still, if he had it to do over again, he would not have allowed any type of chemo for several weeks before the surgery as it’s definitely having an adverse affect on her.
The doctor found quite a few adhesions and little tumors on her liver that didn’t show up in the scans and, as mentioned yesterday, ending up taking about 40% of her liver. He performed ablations (?) – I believe that’s burning out some of the tumors. He did tell her once she’s home, he wants her to have a “chemo holiday” for a while to build her up before they do any more testing. He wants her platelets to regenerate first.
While he was in Florida recently at a cancer convention, many surgeons thought that you should only take out “X amount” of the cancer and then go back about 6 weeks later to take out more. He told Eric and Bri that he disagreed with this theory and thought he should remove any and all cancer he could find at the time – which is what he did. He doesn’t want to go back in later and he says he removed every bit of cancer he could see. Bri says she’s very grateful for his way of thinking!
Again, she is doing a lot of sleeping and they don’t want any phone calls or visitors at this time while she’s in ICU – which will be at least another day. When they release her to another room, and she’s feeling up to it, Eric will take her cell phone up for her so she’ll be able to receive calls on her cell phone at that time.
If you have any specific questions, please let me know and I’ll find out from Eric.
We thank you for all your love, prayers and concern in Bri’s behalf. Eric told me he and a Bishop in the area gave her a blessing last night because she was in so much pain. We know she’ll be fine, especially because of all your love and support!
Love you lots!
Teri
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