My 69 year old sister has very small veins and has been struggling with pain, clotting and other issues (started in the legs) for several years. She is hospitalized currently and awaiting the next step in her care. For several years she has been on blood thinning medication which she administers daily through the abdomen, but this has done little to stop the clotting. She has had several procedures, including one where they put tints in her veins, but these procedures have been ineffective. Her condition started in her legs and she remains in constant pain and has continuous clotting in both legs. Sunday she just underwent rapid lysis because both legs were completely blocked with extreme amounts of clotting. The procedure opened up a small region in the left leg and none in the right. Unfortunately there is now large clot in the region where the legs meet and leads to the aortac vein, a large clot at the bottom of the right leg and another at the midway point of the left leg. Because of the dye administered during the lysis, her kidneys are in failure and doctors are hopeful that the kidneys will recover in the next few days so they can continue on with the next step. Doctors say she can t have the vacuum procedure done because of veins being too small along with other issues, and that because clotting is continuous and unable to be controlled we are concerned about what to do next. The procedure she is awaiting is one where they will go through the groin region (going through the stomach would be too risky for her current condition) and pull out as many major clots as possible as well as scrape away some of the clotting that is remaining in the right leg that did not respond to the prior treatment which they say will block the blood flow to the right leg and there is no treatment they can administer. My question is this. Because she clots so frequently and is now unable to have this procedure until kidneys are functioning properly and surgeons determine if clotting has spread to other areas of the body which they say is highly probable, what is the likelihood of recovery in a patient with this dilemma? We are trying to determine if the coming surgery is the last resort or if other surgeries are available that we are unaware of.