An update on Jessica’s situation

Hi everyone,

Let me begin by expressing – on behalf of both Jessica and I – tons of thanks for all of your kind and understanding comments and emails. I’ve shared them all with Jess as they’ve come in and can tell you that they’ve truly meant a great deal to her.

I wanted to post to let you know where things are presently at. Initially when Jessica had gone into the hospital (for a severe gallstone attack – the second one that week) we’d been told by numerous doctors that they wanted to do an exploratory surgical procedure, and this opinion held for the first 2-3 days. However, instead of going that route it was decided to temporarily hold off, and to run a number of tests (ultrasound, CT scan, MRI, ongoing blood work, etc) over the coming days, while keeping Jess in the hospital (though her white blood cell count appeared normal, certain enzyme levels were elevated which made her doctors suspect she might be running an infection, so pretty much from the get-go they pumped her full of intravenously administered, heavy-duty antibiotics). They also just wanted to monitor her because of the severity of the attacks that’d she’d been having (I should mention, this issue relating to Jessica’s gallbladder popped up for the first time ever at the end of this past March).

Frighteningly, Jess experienced an immediate anaphylactic reaction to the dye (called “contrast dye”) that was used during the CT scan and suddenly became unable to breathe (her throat swelled shut within moments of the dye being administered). Fortunately however, they stopped giving her the dye and got her on oxygen quickly, so in the end she didn’t lose consciousness (or worse, though I shudder to think of such things). I’m happy to say that she made a complete recovery from this experience, but I think she very nearly dodged an unexpected bullet there.

All of the tests confirmed what prior ones (done before she was in the hospital) had already shown, and as Jess had had an appointment scheduled with a surgeon on June 14th (the appointment was made by her GP weeks ago) to discuss her gallbladder situation (we’ve been led to believe by the doctors at the hospital that this surgeon will make a decision as to when Jess will be having surgery, and what kind of surgery that will be), they sent her home from the hospital a few days after her enzyme levels dropped back down near normal levels, with instructions to rest and not overexert herself as much as possible.

Unfortunately, her time in the hospital paired with the around-the-clock antibiotics they gave her (while beneficial in certain regards) caused some of Jessica’s (pre-existing) chronic conditions to flare-up extremely badly, and she continues to battle with those flare-ups plus the ongoing gallbladder area pain that she’s experienced since her first attack back in March.

These things coupled with her orders to rest as much as possible, means that she’s not able to return to blogging on any sort of regular basis for the time being. I know that she misses Chronically Vintage and her blogging friends very much though, and that she’ll start posting again when her health permits.

In the meantime, please keep your fingers crossed that her appointment with the surgeon goes well on Monday and that it results in her getting closer to a solution this medical problem. (Either Jess or myself will continue to keep you updated in the near future.)


Thank you very much for your ongoing kindness and understanding,
Antonio Cangiano (acangiano@gmail.com)