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Hello Everyone,
This is a lengthy discourse on my health issue where things have ended up at this point. If you're not interested, that's fine, you don't have to read any further.
Many of you are aware that I have been monitoring a chronic issue with my kidneys for quite some time now. It basically began sometime before December 2012, when a standard blood test revealed my kidney function at 42%. We do not know how long it had been coming down or when it actually began because I didn't have any tests earlier that showed this. Over the first few months of the 2013 my kidney function dropped rapidly to 19% and just when I was going to be sent for a transplant evaluation it began to come back up. Over the next few months it rose to around 26% and hovered in this range for over a year as we monitored it.
Then in the fall of 2014 it began to slowly drop again reaching 20% in November and then in January it dropped to 16%. At this point I was referred to St. Vincents Hospital in Indianapolis for a transplant evaluation. I soon learned that these things move very slowly. I was finally evaluated in April and completed all of my screening by mid-May (and they run you through the ringer with more tests than you can count). I was accepted into their program and activated on the transplant list in late-May of this year. At that time my eGFR or the measure of my kidney function was at 15%.
Again, I hovered in this range for a while only dropping from 16% to 14% from January through July. Then it started to move again, dropping to 12 then to 11% in mid August. At this point I was getting my blood drawn weekly as my Nephrologist monitored things. A couple of weeks ago it dropped from 11% to 9% over the course of a week. At that time we set up a consultation with a surgeon to install a peritoneal catheter so I could be trained to do Peritoneal Dialysis at home. Unfortunately, a week later my Serum Creatinine rose from 5.8 to 6.7 in a week. I was at work when I got the call from my doctor that he wanted to see me immediately. I left and went to his office and he evaluated me and was pleased that I wasn't experiencing any serious symptoms at this time.
My Nephrologist wanted another test just a few days later to confirm this change. That test was on Monday of this week. He received the results on Tuesday and I met with him then and learned that in just 4 days my creatinine had risen to 8.5 and my kidney function was now at 6%. Thankfully, I still really didn't feel sick.
We talked about the peritoneal consult that was two weeks away and he informed me that I didn't have two weeks. That's a sobering thought when it finally takes root in your mind. It was 5:00 PM in his office on a Tuesday and he got on his cell phone and started calling surgeons. The third one he called said they could install an emergency port in me on Friday morning.
It's been a whirl-wind that last few days with more blood tests, calls with the surgery center, calls with the dialysis facility, and arranging disability leave from work. Tomorrow morning I will have the port installed at the hospital and depending on when the results of the last tests come back I will begin hemo-dialysis on the machine either tomorrow afternoon or Saturday. I will then be on a M-W-F schedule for 4 hours a day. Yuck.
The amazing thing is, aside from some general fatigue and the fact that over the last few weeks I have accumulated about 12 pounds of edema in my legs, I am still relatively free from symptoms. No nausea or vomiting, no headaches, and for a lot of people a GFR of 6 leads to seizures, serious illness, and hospitalization. My two doctors both tell me that I am breaking all of the rules by continuing to work and be free from most of these issues at this kidney level. For that I am thankful for all of the prayers people have lifted up for me. I will trust God to take care of things from here.
My plan is to have the second surgery for the Peritoneal catheter as soon as the surgeon is comfortable doing it. It will take two weeks to heal and a week of training in self-administering the dialysis before I can get off of the machine and do this at home. At the same time, my brother is in the process of being evaluated as a living donor. He was a perfect match for me. He has to stop smoking for two months before continuing on in the process, but so far he is one month into it and doing fine. The ultimate goal here is a transplant. We are praying that this all works out.
As you can imagine, speaker building isn't much of a priority right now, so I plan to step back away from it for a while. I can't imagine leaving it entirely, and depending on how I end up feeling, I may be back at it soon, but for now, I may not be around here quite a much for a while.
By the way, it's all going to work out fine.
Jeff
This is a lengthy discourse on my health issue where things have ended up at this point. If you're not interested, that's fine, you don't have to read any further.
Many of you are aware that I have been monitoring a chronic issue with my kidneys for quite some time now. It basically began sometime before December 2012, when a standard blood test revealed my kidney function at 42%. We do not know how long it had been coming down or when it actually began because I didn't have any tests earlier that showed this. Over the first few months of the 2013 my kidney function dropped rapidly to 19% and just when I was going to be sent for a transplant evaluation it began to come back up. Over the next few months it rose to around 26% and hovered in this range for over a year as we monitored it.
Then in the fall of 2014 it began to slowly drop again reaching 20% in November and then in January it dropped to 16%. At this point I was referred to St. Vincents Hospital in Indianapolis for a transplant evaluation. I soon learned that these things move very slowly. I was finally evaluated in April and completed all of my screening by mid-May (and they run you through the ringer with more tests than you can count). I was accepted into their program and activated on the transplant list in late-May of this year. At that time my eGFR or the measure of my kidney function was at 15%.
Again, I hovered in this range for a while only dropping from 16% to 14% from January through July. Then it started to move again, dropping to 12 then to 11% in mid August. At this point I was getting my blood drawn weekly as my Nephrologist monitored things. A couple of weeks ago it dropped from 11% to 9% over the course of a week. At that time we set up a consultation with a surgeon to install a peritoneal catheter so I could be trained to do Peritoneal Dialysis at home. Unfortunately, a week later my Serum Creatinine rose from 5.8 to 6.7 in a week. I was at work when I got the call from my doctor that he wanted to see me immediately. I left and went to his office and he evaluated me and was pleased that I wasn't experiencing any serious symptoms at this time.
My Nephrologist wanted another test just a few days later to confirm this change. That test was on Monday of this week. He received the results on Tuesday and I met with him then and learned that in just 4 days my creatinine had risen to 8.5 and my kidney function was now at 6%. Thankfully, I still really didn't feel sick.
We talked about the peritoneal consult that was two weeks away and he informed me that I didn't have two weeks. That's a sobering thought when it finally takes root in your mind. It was 5:00 PM in his office on a Tuesday and he got on his cell phone and started calling surgeons. The third one he called said they could install an emergency port in me on Friday morning.
It's been a whirl-wind that last few days with more blood tests, calls with the surgery center, calls with the dialysis facility, and arranging disability leave from work. Tomorrow morning I will have the port installed at the hospital and depending on when the results of the last tests come back I will begin hemo-dialysis on the machine either tomorrow afternoon or Saturday. I will then be on a M-W-F schedule for 4 hours a day. Yuck.
The amazing thing is, aside from some general fatigue and the fact that over the last few weeks I have accumulated about 12 pounds of edema in my legs, I am still relatively free from symptoms. No nausea or vomiting, no headaches, and for a lot of people a GFR of 6 leads to seizures, serious illness, and hospitalization. My two doctors both tell me that I am breaking all of the rules by continuing to work and be free from most of these issues at this kidney level. For that I am thankful for all of the prayers people have lifted up for me. I will trust God to take care of things from here.
My plan is to have the second surgery for the Peritoneal catheter as soon as the surgeon is comfortable doing it. It will take two weeks to heal and a week of training in self-administering the dialysis before I can get off of the machine and do this at home. At the same time, my brother is in the process of being evaluated as a living donor. He was a perfect match for me. He has to stop smoking for two months before continuing on in the process, but so far he is one month into it and doing fine. The ultimate goal here is a transplant. We are praying that this all works out.
As you can imagine, speaker building isn't much of a priority right now, so I plan to step back away from it for a while. I can't imagine leaving it entirely, and depending on how I end up feeling, I may be back at it soon, but for now, I may not be around here quite a much for a while.
By the way, it's all going to work out fine.
Jeff
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