Today's update - 7/25

I am still hospitalized. It's after midnight here in Wilmington, and later today I am scheduled to undergo a comfort treatment that will hopefully relieve some of the discomfort I'm feeling from the disease in my liver.

Endoscopic retrograde cholangio pancreatography is the procedure. When stents are placed it's often written as "ERCP with biliary stent placement."

The scope goes down the esophagus, through the stomach, into the duodenum, and then a catheter is threaded through the ampulla of Vater backward ("retrograde") up the bile ducts. Contrast is injected to image the ducts, and a plastic or metal stent can be left in place to hold open a blockage.

Please pray that this procedure is successful in offering the palliative care I currently need.