109 pounds, GOOD NEWS from ID doctor!

Denise weighed in at 109 pounds without shoes. The doctors are talking about removing the feeding tube and the PICC line. Wow! Two more steps toward normalcy.
Better yet was an appointment with the infectious disease doctor yesterday that was fairly hefty in the good news department. He thought the liver felt a little smaller. That Denise's liver was full (packed) with granulomas (typical cellular reaction to infection) is quite impressive. Apparently her body's been able to muster the appropriate responses to infections. As a result of the granulomas, he expects liver enzymes to be off and fluctuate at times (AlkPhos up to 394 from 318, SGOT down to 82 from 89, SGPT up to 182 from 134, all labs drawn one week apart). The ID doctor is comfortable with drawing liver labs every two weeks now (rather than every week), and there was another titer drawn that will be sent to UC Davis for evaluation. He also commented that he thinks the cocci found in the liver biopsy was dead. MAJOR RELIEF to not have that stuff be new or active! Enough about livers...
The ID doctor said that he thinks the rash Denise has is more acne than anything, and thought that sweats & ongoing bad dreams are not typical side-effects of voriconazole (yes, odd that it started with her switch to that antifungal med, but he's the doctor and I'm not). He thinks that the Diflucan (a.k.a. fluconazole, the previous antifungal med) must have been the cause of the nausea that landed her in the hospital a couple weeks ago. Still not sure why her manic phases started or stopped.
Other questions he answered were that yes, Denise CAN still eat mushrooms. Yeah, we're paranoid to think that eating a fungus would have anything to do with a fungal infection acquired via inhalation. But then again I've heard & seen all sorts of unbelievable things during the last eight-plus months. Also, Denise CAN go to Coalinga (central California valley city where her parents and the cocci fungus live), but not when it's dry, dusty or windy. Apparently what she's been through, and possibly developing a resistance to one of the antifungal meds, puts her at a higher likelihood of having a flare-up if the conditions are right (or completely wrong, depending).
Yesterday my dad & I went to visit my grandmother and a great uncle that flew in from Washington, the siblings of my great uncle that died last week. I guess that nobody knew how bad off my great uncle was and upon reading my blog post that he wasn't expected to live much longer, my great uncle from Washington decided to catch an earlier flight than what he'd planned. As a result, he was able to see his brother hours before he passed away. Though the circumstances were unfortunate, I'm glad that this blog was able to play a part in allowing them to see each other one more time.

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