Amy's 'momentary trouble'

One major piece of info that I had left out in my previous posting is the fact that we switched surgeons and facilities in the middle of this process. The issue came down to this; the first surgeon was brand new, 6 months out of his residency and he’s performed the type of surgery Amy is facing 3 times in the past 6 months. Not to mention that he wanted to open her up, look to see how involved the tumor was with the intestinal vein and if it was too involved (wrapped), sew her back up and send her off to Mayo. Now I know many of you might think, ‘where is a surgeon supposed to gain his/her experience?’ All I can say to that is, not on my wife. In an article written at Johns Hopkins it is stated that the number 1 factor in patient survival for this surgery is surgical & facility experience. So, with the help of my brother-in-law, we pulled the trigger and moved across town to the University of Wisconsin Hospitals to a doctor who is well respected in his field, he is the chief of surgical oncology and he performs this surgery 2 to 3 times a week.
Now, shortly after our first visit with this new surgeon, Amy’s eyes and skin started to turn yellow and she started to itch...EVERYWHERE. The top of her head, the palms of her hands, in between her fingers, you name it, she itched. All of this was caused by jaundice and the doctors, wanting to clear this up before she starts her chemo, scheduled her to have a stint put into her bile duct to assist in the flow of bile. This procedure normally takes an hour, but Amy’s took a little over 2 hours. I asked the doctor why it took so long and he said that the tumor is attached to the bile duct and is actually pulling on it and that pulling made an ‘S’ curve in the duct which made it tricky to insert the stint.
4 days later and Amy’s is still itching (actually worse than ever), she calls the doctor, who has her go to our local clinic for a blood test. He calls in the afternoon and says that the test shows that her levels are normalizing and that the itching should taper off soon. Amy had quite a bit of pain following the procedure to insert the stint and she’s still recovering from that, she is easily fatigued and sleeps quite frequently.
This week has been a particularly difficult one for me. At times I find it SO very hard to see past the figures & statistics to the hope that lies beyond. It is difficult at best and a crushing weight at worst.

This is Amy's story as seen and told by me - V