BIG SCARE AVERTED

This is Dean again.  These past 2 weeks have been especially stressful.  First time I'm losing sleep over Ginny's condition and my brain's going a mile a minute.  Sorry for the long blog - it le's me decompress.
On the previous blog, I said the oncology nurse had called on Monday to say Ginny's liver numbers went down a little.  That Friday, Feb 3, Ginny brought home the labs results (from Jan 27 blood draw) and only 1 number had gone down - I don't know why the nurse told me the numbers looked better.  The critical liver functional numbers had all gone up and her bilirubin was highest ever - Ginny was even more yellow.  Tough weekend worrying over these results.  I emailed the liver embo doc to make sure he saw the results.  He emailed back on Monday and said that her most recent lab results (from Feb 3 blood draw - I know hard to keep these dates straight) showed the numbers were holding and one number was significantly down (he had not seen the results from the Jan 27 blood draw).  So I made a table showing the increase in trend of her numbers and the reason for my concern.  He wanted Ginny to come in the next couple of days to get fluid drained from her abdomen.
We went the next day so this doc can do the procedure and he did an ultrasound exam of her abdomen for a long, long time.  This usually means something is not good.  He then told us that he suspects her portal vein had thrombosed (clotted shut).  The portal vein takes all the blood carrying nutrients, waste products, minerals, etc. from the stomach, intestines, colon, pancreas, spleen, other abdominal organs to the liver for processing.  If you Googled "portal vein thrombosis", you will see it is usually a catastrophic event.  But then he says that he suspects this occurred about 3 weeks ago when her abdomen started the severe swelling so it was good that she was still alive.  This means that her liver is still functioning to a degree for whatever reason.  He then proceeded to warn us about all the bad things to be aware of like sudden coughing up of lots of blood, severe rectal bleeding, etc. - very scary stuff.  He wanted Ginny to get a CT scan ASAP.
We got the scan this afternoon and her portal vein is still open - that's the great news.  But, the left side of the bile ducts in her liver are very clogged and the right part of her liver is sclerotic (scar tissue probably from tumor die off).  So, her liver is still under severe stress.  Ginny has no energy, no appetite so that's what we'll be trying to improve this weekend.
Many of you were already aware of these developments as I've asked for help from you.  We so much appreciate the wonderful family and friends we have.  Enjoy your families as much as you can.  Thank all of you for your continued prayers, good thoughts and love.