And so it’s been a while since I’ve updated you all and for
good reason – I’ve been doing just fine.
For better or worse, I’ve gotten pretty much back into the swing of
things as they were before all the shenanigans in Denver. Work has been an amusement park ride without
the amusement and I firmly believe, more than ever, that the weakest link in
any computer is the human controlling it.
I’ve also gotten back into the gym which has been a lesson in patience
and humility – I have to remember to check the ego at the door and accomplish
what I can, something I don’t do easily.
But as all good things do, this also had to come to an
end. I have been getting blood drawn and
seeing the local nephrologist every week and they noticed a disturbing
trend. One of the levels they watch like
the stock market is my creatinine. In a normal, healthy
individual, this level should be below 1.2 mg per deciliter (thank God for the
interwebs). Of course, me being the
over-achiever I am, my level was at 2 and had been rising for about a
week. This of course set off alarms to
put nuclear power plants to shame and everyone was in a panic. Well, I might be exaggerating a bit but the
doctor was concerned – I saw him frown a bunch.
But wait, there’s more… when the doc put his stethoscope to my new
addition, he heard what he described as a “gurgling noise” from the blood
flow. Normally a gurgling noise is
relaxing but he was anything but. Not a
good sign for a Friday afternoon.
So of course he did what any responsible doctor would do and ordered a
bunch of tests of indeterminate expense and meaningful value. As a result, I was poked with at least one
needle each day this week, pumped full of “nuclear medicine” (which seems to be
an oxymoron to me) and probed with sound waves. From all of that, we’ve determined, beyond a
shadow of a doubt, that I’m not pregnant (a great relief to me), that the
bloodflow seems to be perfectly normal and that my body has no problems
processing nuclear fluid which I’m sure will come in handy when WW3 breaks out
and turns Boynton Beach into a nuclear wasteland. Beyond that, I’m not entirely sure if I’m
better off now or before. That’s not
actually true. I know (because I was
told, not because I became a doctor recently) that the blood flow to the kidney
is not being blocked in any significant way (a concern shared by everyone) and
that it appears, after all, that I was “only” going through a rejection
episode. Fantastic!
Now before you all decide to call me at once, let me explain that
rejection episodes happen frequently enough to be considered “not
uncommon”. It’s like when a weapon of
mass destruction is stolen – it apparently happens enough to have its own
name. So when my creatinine levels
started creeping up, they thought that it was either the blood flow or a
rejection. Since we can rule out blood
flow, it had to be rejection. As a
result, I had to go to the hospital to get a regimen of superdeedooper
prednisone infusions, something I looked forward to as much as having my skull
caved in with a dead cat. This would
apparently fix the issue as well as make me feel like I had gained 45 lbs
overnight, so down the rabbit hole I went.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I got the distinct pleasure of having
IV’s shoved into my arms which, in the grand scheme of things, is a lot better
than some of the other things I’ve had doctors and nurses shove in different
places. (side note: can you believe they
charged close to $15k for the comedy of errors known as a stent removal?)
So today I went back to the doctor after having STAT bloodwork done
this morning which I’m imaging has less to do with statistics and more to do
with “GET IT DONE ALREADY!” The good
news is that it appears I’ve talked my immune system off the ledge and my creatinine
levels are down to 1.7. The doctor
smiled instead of frowned which I take as a good thing and we all hugged before
I left. Not really.
So the moral of the story is that I didn’t do anything wrong. (so Tracey, you can put down the
pitchfork). The doctor wracked it up to
the fact that I have a very good immune system which in this instance isn’t helpful. Damn me for being healthy!
So that’s the story. A bit of a
scare but otherwise just another week in the life…
p.s. - I'm thinking there's a better way to tan...
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