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Fede was admitted to the hospital on November 23rd. He has been in the hospital for one week now. Fede was having pain that was increasingly getting worse over the past month and a half. His doctors thought that it was muscular and joint pain and were treating him for that. The pain was unbearable in his back and stomach. He was also having problems eating. After a few bites of food he was getting nausea and all of these strange symptoms. He was loosing weight fast. His doctor ordered an MRI of his back to rule out cancer in his bones. It came back clear. A week and half ago he had an endoscopy and it also came back good. Not even any sign of the original tumor in his esophagus. His blood work was fine. But we knew something was terribly wrong. Finally by last Wednesday we went to his doctor and he took one look at Fede and admitted him directly to the hospital.
When we got to the hospital his blood results showed an elevated bilirubin. They thought it might be his gallbladder. They went in on Thursday and put a stent into his bile duct to help the bilirubin flow better. They discoverd that that was only a small part of the problem. Fede's ducts in his liver seem to be not funtioning well and therefore the bile is not being processed and instead is backing up into his system.
Fede has now been undergoing every test possible. He has had another MRI, ct scans, blood tests, urine and fecal tests and today he has a biopsy of his liver. Tomorrow he will have an colonoscopy. They want to make sure they are checking every possible cause. He is taking a medicine to help thin out the bile so that is flows better but their big concern is his liver. They were hoping that after the stent was placed his bilirubin would start to come down to normal but it has not and it has gone up a little higher each day. The rest of his liver enzymes are almost back to normal and that is good news, meaning that the liver is still functioning. The main problem is with the ducts and the bile not draining. He is jaundice with the bile backing up in his system. And his is also retaining fluid in his abdomen which is very uncomfortable. They are in the middle of these tests so we still don't have any solid answers.
Fede is still optimistic and full of hope. But he knows that this is a hard road. He is at Hoag hospital in Newport Beach and is being treated very well. He wants to get back home to his family but also wants to make sure the doctors find the cause of this problem.
Thank you all for your prayers,support and encouragement. Fede really appreciates your friendship! He is not giving up hope and we pray for a miracle!