Joy update #2

Hi everyone, thank you so much for all of your kind words in means so much to Joy and our family. Here's the latest, on Tues. she had a CT whih showed that there was a pocket of fluid right above her bladder that extanded around her back, which caused all the distention and pain. Also her liver was enlarged and the tumors had grown since her Feb. CT which we already new that was going on and that's why we had switch to Ixempra. Everything else looked good. So, she had a paracenthesis done on Wed. they drained 1500cc (I think?). We don't have the cytology report back yet and Joy is very worried that the cancer has spread and may be in the fluid. She's out of the hospital and resting at her boyfriends house but is still very uncomfortable. Her second set of labs from being in the hospital actually showed an improvement in her bilirubin it dropped to .9 (I think?) The onc said the chemo could be working.

I was wondering if any of you had any experience with ascities? I have done a lot of research on it and have of course found some people can recover and some people who struggle with it. The onc said the chemo could still work on the cancerous cells in the fluid too. She still feels like this is a signal of the end and is so depressed and scared, I just want to give her some hope and try to get her to think more positively. But I understand why it is so hard. Any thoughts or words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated and will of course be shared with Joy. Thanks so much for caring about my sister, it means a lot! Jennifer