Hospital Post 9

12:45 pm, Friday.  Now the GI doc (Steve Woods) has been by (he's the overall coordinator of Ed's medical world) for a more than decent interview and talk.  He  had googled Ed since our last talk (3 weeks ago) and found that he had written a lot on medical topics/quality of care.  We appreciated that effort/level of interest.  It almost made it easier, I think, for him to understand Ed's request for an oncologist who could talk statistics to Ed when discussing treatment possibilities.  He reported that the liver biopsy results were back, but if it told us anything we didn't already know, I missed that detail.  We also talked to him about the possibility of spread to the lungs.  The CT scan showed the lung bases clear, but there was no CT scan above that level.  Apparently, according to Woods, it's less likely to spread to the lungs until later in the course of the disease, but the oncologist, whom we will see in a week to ten days, is in charge of this aspect of further staging.

Woods was impressed with how well Ed was looking and confirmed that today's down aspects--the weakness--are not surprising.  He anticipated that the discharge would be tomorrow or perhaps Sunday, even.  Bowel function returns in its own time, he says.

In fact, Ed is looking better as the day goes by; he's able to do the spirometer better, better energy level, better color, stronger speech.  But he tires easily.  We'll go out for another walk in a few minutes.  And sometime, the surgeon of few words will make the lightning-speed visit.