"There's a myth that anyone who has a liver problem has brought it on themselves" This quote is from a Crohn's disease patient living with a blocked portal vein hoping for a liver transplant (Independent 31st Oct 2010)

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Staple remover



11am. District Nurse - who spots MIL's landscape (above) and has a father who lived in Kirkby Stephen! - comes to take out the staples. Almost painless.

My abdomen is slightly swollen and though it's most likely from the surgery she recommends I take a waist measurement every 2-3 days as I need to check for a common side effect of liver disease - ascites. My blood serum levels of albumin - which have been normal up to now - are a tad on the low side. Albumin is a protein made in the liver. It maintains the amount of blood in the veins and arteries. When levels are low fluid can leak from the blood vessels into surrounding tissue causing swollen feet and ankles. In more severe cases it leaks into the abdomen - ascites.

My waist is 1" more than pre-op, but that could be the inaccuracy of our only soft measuring tape designed to plot dimensions of IKEA furniture!
Weight is 4lb down on pre-op. So the challenge is to put on weight but lose it from my waist ... mmm. Measure T's waist too. The IKEA tape is only just long enough! He wants to lose both weight and inches so throws out all the chocolate biscuits. I don't eat them anyway. Immediately we have a fancy for chocolate cake.
Feel well enough this evening to make everyone pasta bake and eat a hefty portion myself. Poor J suffering with horrid cold so he follows the old maxim 'feed a cold to starve a fever'.


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