TREATMENT FOR ELLA
After looking for gall stones, the physicians at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, PA, installed a percutaneous bile drain into the left side of Ella’s liver to siphon off the excess bile. A percutaneous bile drain is a tube that is installed by Interventional Radiologists using fluoroscopy which is placed into the bile ducts of the liver.
Every few weeks the gauge of the right tube was increased to provide a larger canal for the bile flow. The hope was that after 6-9 months scar tissue would mature around the new tube, creating new bile ducts and through this new common duct, the surgeons would be able to penetrate the left side of the liver and create new ducts out of the fast-growing scar tissue.
Welcome to ellasliver.com. This site was created by friends and family of Ella Watson to celebrate her as our an amazing sister, friend and extraordinarily gifted artist and to support her as she battles a serious, and life-threatening liver disease.
The tube then takes the excess bile and directs it into a bag that is attached at Ella’s side. Ella empties this bag several times a day. It was a temporary fix—Ella’s symptoms receded, but Ella’s bile ducts were severely scarred by the disease. Ella’s surgeons knew they had to find some way to create access from the liver to the intestine, or Ella would need a liver transplant.
Over the next three months, while Ella adjusted to her new accoutrements, the doctors at Geisinger tried endoscopies and numerous IR procedures to get through the scar tissue to create a passage way for bile to flow into the intestine. Unfortunately, these did not work and were very painful.
On March 20, 2007, Dr. Chintalapati Varma attempted a Rouenx –y Revision, an invasive procedure in which he tried to clear the bile ducts using direct surgical means as opposed to using imaging and tubes. Dr. Varma was not successful, but was able to install a second tube in the right side of her liver that broke through the right side scar tissue and drained bile internally into the intestines, as opposed to the left drain which displaced the bile into an outer bag.
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Sadly, this did not work, and because the second tube was placed in a thin space between two ribs lined with nerves, Ella’s tubes were very painful. Additionally, the tubes were constantly becoming clogged by bile salts or dislodged, and Ella repeatedly underwent IR procedures to have the tubes switched or repositioned. Ella was hospitalized twice for extreme pain and was placed on numerous oral painkillers, including methadone, Percocet, and morphine.
In August 2008, Ella moved to New York to be with her family and to seek treatment at New York Presbyterian Hospital. At the end of August, Ella’s right tube became dislodged and was sucked into her chest by her intestines. She went to the ER and began treatment. However, despite the valiant effort of the radiologists at NYPH, an MRI revealed that Ella had multiple pools of bile in her liver and the scarring was quite extensive. At that point it became clear that the only remaining course of action was a transplant.
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