It’s not you, it’s me. Typically these are words that we hear from a
significant other at a less than optimal time.
So imagine my surprise when blood tested indicated that the newest
addition the happy co-op I call my body was trying to tell me this. For those of you who didn’t follow that
grammatical nightmare of a sentence, recent blood work seemed to show tell-tale
signs of my body trying to evict my new kidney.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say there was a notice posted and a sheriff
knocking (sorry, you’ll have to bear with me – I seem to be on a bad analogy
streak right now) but it was showing warning signs of an imminent
everything-you-own-on-the-lawn moment.
Not good.
For those of you who religiously follow this blog
and hang on my every written word, you all need a better hobby. The plus side for your obsession is that you
already know the backstory about all the work that went into figuring out that
rejection isn’t just for pimply teenagers. For those who don't, congratulations and here’s the condensed milk version – creatinine numbers climbed (to a 2.0
for those still keeping score) and never went back down below 1.7. (if you have
to know what those numbers mean, just
click here) So, according to the deal that I made with
the devil doctor, that meant my happy ass had to make an unscheduled
detour on my way to work Thursday morning, commuting to Porter Hospital to get
a biopsy done on the transplanted kidney via PBI. The trip out to Denver was uneventful (aside
from the torturous seating next to toilets a dung beetle wouldn’t enter) and
the procedure today was also thankfully uneventful, even free of foul
single-seating rooms. I did determine something
today however – walking into the local pub to be greeted by the barkeep could
be construed as a good thing (though some negative
people would say otherwise) but one thing is for sure – walking into a
hospital to be greeted by name, especially when you live 2000 miles away, is
decidedly not a good thing. Nonetheless, I was cheerfully greeted by a
very nice nurse who proceeded to attempt to stick what is pictured above into
my stomach. I lie, she didn’t but this
fuzzy eared doctor (who was not a bear) did.
Yes, the needle pictured above is the exact model they used to extract two
small pieces of kidney from me. Of
course they give you some numbing agent (got to pad that insurance charge
somehow, right?) and say, “Did you hear that?”
Next thing you know, you look like a Saturn V rocket crash landed into
your stomach. I make it worse than it
was – I actually didn’t feel anything because the nerves in that area still
haven’t figured out efficient routing of traffic yet. In fact, I watched the whole thing
on the sonogram screen – the needle poking in, the extraction, all of it. I wanted to make sure doc isn’t poking
where he shouldn’t, given the importance of surrounding areas if you catch my
drift… A thought just occurred to me – I most likely have been given a sonogram
more times than a large percentage of women in the world. Huh.
Random.
But that’s it.
If you can get past having 15 inches of plastic and metal unceremoniously
shoved into sensitive areas, it’s not that big of a deal. If you ask real nice, they might even let you see the tissue samples which look remarkably like inch-long strips of white 16 gauge wire (yes, I asked and yes, they showed me - don't judge).
So, what’s next?
I have to wait for results which, as with everything medical related,
has a STAT associated with it. I’ve
already heard from the transplant center today and they said my kidney still loves
me and wasn’t attempting to reject me.
Rather, it appears I’ve been hitting the phosphorous a little too hard
(all with doctor approval) and as a result, little crystals were forming inside
the kidney, reducing the efficiency of the kidney and bumping up the creatinine
level. It’s an easy fix – stop taking
the damn pills and drink 135 gallons of water in the next 24 hours. I might be wrong on the amount of water…
So that’s it.
I’m hoping this is the last I have to write about my organs but who
knows, the saga always continues…
