Thanks for caring, status is quo

[scyllacat]

I haven't had time to post at all for a few weeks. Thus the parade of tweets and twitters. But my mother has been having substantial, spontaneous epistaxis (doctor talk for "nosebleed") for a few weeks now. They have been getting worse, and this week she had to have the vessels cauterized for the second time because it just would not stop.

The doctor she went to said that he could see two possible causes, one being "bad luck" (by which I suppose he meant "idiopathic") or arising from her cirrhosis. I find it listed as a complication or symptom, and it does not look good.

But there's not much you can do about livers, so we try to stop the bleeding. :(

Some of you know my mom, and some of you care about my mom because of me, so here's the history/skinny:

My mother's primary physical issue throughout her adult life has been obesity. She's been a yo-yo dieter for years, but really lost control of it after my dad died in 1991. Thus, she's had high blood pressure for years and developed type 2 diabetes. She's had problems with her feet and legs, and they're talking about her needing knee replacement in a couple of years.

Her other primary problem has been underlying all these years, a condition called hemochromatosis. We'd thought we were pretty lucky, as it seems that we'd gotten off with only liver damage, although, of course, since they found it, they'd been watching her closely. However, the cirrhosis is severe, and so a lot of medications are now not available to my mom, etc.

What happens now? I don't know. Her life expectancy is definitely shortened, but by how much? I'm more concerned, at the moment, that episodes like the nosebleeds will map a long, slow decline for her.

So, from here, I got nothing.

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[polychromatic22.livejournal.com]

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