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"Nothing with me is simple...

but I am STILL HERE!" - Carmen

Today was another crazy day for Carmen, you know to keep things interesting. The radiologists looked at the ultrasound, and based on that thought that perhaps it wasn't blood clots but the compression of the inferior vena cava instead. So they did a venogram to look at the veins to verify the presence of the blood clots. As it turned out, there were no blood clots, and the fluid retention was based on the compression of the lower vena cava.

The doctors put in 2 or 3 stents to reinforce the vein that was nearly completely compressed by the tumors, which took quite some time because of a minor hiccup. The second stent only half deployed, but was attached to the stent above it, and so they had to hold the top stent from above as they pulled the lower stent to fully open it. (To all my future doctor friends--I can't believe you are going to be doing crazy on the spot stuff like this. You guys are awesome!) Because Carmen was actually half conscious for this procedure she was somewhat nervous and concerned about the amount of time it was taking... but fortunately, everything turned out well, thanks to the expertise of the Hopkins doctors.

After the procedure Carmen had to stay laying down for most of the afternoon. So we stopped by in the early evening to see her. She was looking a lot better, and so happy to have the procedure finally done and a solution to her concerns of the fluid retention. After not being able to eat for most of the day she thoroughly enjoyed 2 peaches and half a Panera spinach artichoke sandwich. She was very exhausted from her long night (she could not sleep because she was worried about the procedure) and busy day. Shortly after eating she started drifting off to sleep with the help of the pain meds. 

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Carmen Mateo

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