Knowing More

As of yesterday afternoon, we know more about what is going on with Ray. As I suspected, the abdominal CT was our goldmine of information. It turns out that Ray has an abscess that is attached to the top of his bladder and to a piece of his colon.

Last night, at the urging of our doctor, we went to the hospital to get the ball rolling on removing that abscess. It took the doctors a while to decide which route to take: abdominal surgery or a procedure that involves sticking a needle into his gut and draining the abscess. Because the abscess is attached to both the colon and the bladder, there was even some debate as to whether this was a surgical case or a urological case. Turns out that surgery is more responsive than urology in that hospital, so the ER team asked them first and they took Ray's case. He's been admitted as an outpatient.

Today Ray has gone back to the hospital that did the CT scan to get a disk of his CT. CT's have as much radiation as 1000 Xrays, and Ray has had two CT scans this year. The doctors would like to save him from having another one. Getting a disk of the one he had on Tuesday will save them from having to do another one. (If you are wondering why we are not going back to the hospital that did his CT to have this procedure done, well our doctor recommended this other hospital because they have a better reputation for these sort of problems.)

At 12:30 he is going to the radiology department and he will have an hour long procedure. Other than that they will stick a needle into his stomach and drain the abscess, I am not sure of the details. It will take about an hour. And they will culture the material that comes out of his abscess. It's rare and unlikely for it to be anything other than bacteria (possibly from his diverticulitis attack), but they want to be sure that it is not a freak cancer or something equally alarming.

Ray already has an appointment for a follow up with his surgeon next Wednesday.

Now you know as much as we do!