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Only Liver Moms will Appreciate and Understand this Fear

For the last three days Ashley has had a little bit of blood in her stool; at first we thought the redness was from something she ate but after reviewing her food intake over the last week she hasn't had anything red. Today I get a call from Ashley at school, she says the bleeding is worse. I take her to the doctors praying she had a rectal tear or hemorrhoids but the doctor couldn't see anything on internal examination. By the way, this was Ashley first experience with a rectal exam, she was so uncomfortable she couldn't stop laughing.

The doc orders a complete set of labs with a liver function panel and CBC's with platelet count. He also told me to keep Ashley home from school tomorrow and monitor her stool color and bleeding. Which means I have to pretty much dissect Ashley's stool to see what color the blood is, where it is located on her stool; the inside or the outside, etc. Oh what fun...just how I want to spend my Tuesday.

The fear is that Ashley has varices and they are bleeding. Having varices in the colon are rare but Ashley has liver disease so we can't rule anything out. Usually varices are found in the stomach and the esophagus. Her lab results tomorrow should tell us more. Until then just think of me the next time you sit on the "John", "toilet," "commode", "waste receptacle", whatever you call it.

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