10/20/2017 Update

After asking a number of questions throughout the day today, we ended up with the Gynecologist asking for a referral from a vascular surgeon who specializes in blood clots.  After he examined Julie and we talked about a few things, he went back and consulted with another vascular surgeon and made a recommendation to move Julie to the ICU as a precautionary measure.  We are now in ICU for 2 to 3 days.  She was actually making some progress and had just managed to eat a small cup of chicken broth without pain or throwing up so we thought things were finally looking positive again.  However, the location of the blood clot poses the risk of causing cells in the intestine to die off, which would become a medical emergency requiring emergency surgery if it were to happen and not get caught quickly.  The doctor does not believe this is happening and did not recommend moving her to ICU because there is a problem getting worse, but rather as a precaution so they can keep a close watch on her.  They are changing the blood thinner to something that is much more aggressive that requires close supervision to administer.  They are also wanting her bowels to rest for a couple of days, so she will be fed through a tube of some sort starting tomorrow (bypassing her bowels) and will have the contents of her stomach pumped out.  This will allow the clot to have a chance to break up some without adding the pain and pressure of the bowels needing to process food.  It will also allow her to once again begin to get the nutrients she needs as she has not been able to eat in several days.  Resting the bowels also removes several other risks of bad things that could potentially happen without taking this precaution.  Thankfully all of the tests indicate that none of these bad complications have occurred nor even begun to occur and she is now being treated in a way that will prevent them from occurring.

Ben