University of Michigan Hospital

Today I met with my surgeon at U of M. He was awesome!!!! We met for over an hour discussing my case, looking at my CT's, MRI's....He is the "fix-it" man, but the problem is, he doesn't know exactly what to do.

Some of my friends laugh at me, and it is a long story, but I am a Zebra. Most hospitals are filled with every day horses that all Dr's see, but me, I am a Zebra. The Zebra is the one everyone wants to see b/c it is rare.

On Tuesdays at U of M, a group of board physicians meet to discuss patients that they just don't know what to do with. He is going to bring my case to those physicians and together, a group of at least 20 Dr.'s will decide what the game plan is going to be. The good news, I have time. This is something we are going to monitor for now, until we know exactly what we all want to do and what is going to be best for me. The game plan : Meet with the board of physicians and show everyone he knows my case 2. I have to have a Venogram (a test that will measure the blood pressure outside of my liver compared to that of the pressure inside it) 3. He wants to talk to his favorite Interventional Radiologist 4. I am going to call him next week and every week for the next few months to see how I am doing and what we are going to do will be determined. So far here's our options:

1. Monitoring (do nothing) maybe with my next banding of my varices (veins in my esophagus) my gastroenterologist will see that they are going down in size, decreasing, and the blood thinners and blood pressure meds are working on their own.

2. Splenectomy (remove my spleen) get the pressure internally to balance thus decreasing the pressure on those big veins in my throat.

3. Stent (interventionally) from the inside of my liver past the blood clot (this would be ideal) Possible????

4. Shunt (huge surgery, cutting me open from side to side) connecting my portal vein to my vena cava with a shunt I would be in the hospital for a min. of 5 days and 2 months of recovery. Possibity of death. Then, would it clot agian???? Remember, we still don't know WHY this has happened.

So, I am to live life as normal as I can. NO cardio work, nothing that is going to raise my blood pressure alot, but I can work, I can take care of my kids....Wait.....Haven't I already been doing that???

We were very pleased with this Dr. He was very awesome, informative, sensitive, and gave us peace of mind that he is going to figure out what is best for me. I know I am in good hands there and I feel very confident. We will see!