it’s been 6 days since the second ERCP.

josh still feels awful. he’s actually taking a sick day today—one of the few times i’ve ever seen him do that. even when he’s sick he normally works from home, but not today.

we didn’t get out of the hospital after the last ERCP until 4 am, so we didn’t get home until almost 5 am. they had to keep him longer because he threw up right before he was going to be discharged, so they ran tests to make sure he didn’t have pancreatitis (5 to 10% of people develop pancreatitis after an ERCP). it ended up just being the anesthesia that made him sick, thank goodness. bad news is that he has to have anesthesia for every ERCP since he didn’t tolerate sedation for the first one, so we’ll most likely work it out so he stays overnight for future ERCPs. we couldn’t this time because we had no one lined up to check on winston.

but anyway, talk about a miserable night. he slept a little in the hospital but you know how they are—coming in to check your vitals right as you manage to fall asleep. i got no sleep at all and took a sick day the day after that. josh worked from home that next day.

josh’s mother broke her leg in several places this past friday night, so he spent most of saturday in the hospital waiting room while she underwent surgery to put a pin in. his dad and some of his brothers and sisters (he has 7 siblings) were there as well. apparently the siblings noticed how sick josh looks now. his mother called last night to check on josh and she said they asked if he was sick. he was hoping to keep things hidden from his siblings until he absolutely had to. but more people are starting to notice; even his boss told him yesterday he looked like he was sick and needed to get some rest. there has been no change in how he feels, but the doctor told him it could take a week or slightly longer for him to start feeling better. he’s still noticeably jaundiced, itching like crazy, and has absolutely no energy. i can’t get him to eat very much; he feels sick after he eats because his liver is producing bile that can’t flow very well through the strictured biliary tree.

my dad mowed the grass for us last weekend. he said he’d mow it again this weekend. sad to say that i haven’t mowed since i was about 14 or 15 years old, but i will be re-learning this weekend. we have a riding mower but the fenced-in portion of the yard has to be pushed-mowed because of the pool. i’m not sure i can handle the weed-eating so dad will probably still do that. there’s a bunch of stuff around the house i need to take care of, stuff that josh normally does, like changing the furnace filters and replacing burned-out landscape lights. i need to make a list.

we’re getting a break from the heat for the next week or so. highs will only be in the mid-80s instead of the mid-90s. i think we hit 90 or above for the last 3 weeks straight. the pool water is 93 degrees, which is not all that comfortable to swim in. hopefully the water will cool down some now that it’s supposed to be around 60 degrees at night.

that’s it for now. i’ll update again in a few days.