From House Wife To Film Maker

Good news. 
Zac’s appointment yesterday went very well.  I wanted to get this finished and posted last night but sleep was calling like a siren…

His blood levels are continuing to come into safer zones.  So the doctor is very encouraged, therefore dialysis is still in the holding off stage.  Thank God.  One statement he made was, “Zachary has improved better than I could have ever hoped.”

While the doctor was sharing the blood results he stated, “Zachary’s kidney function is now up to 22%, which is such an improvement over the 8% where we started.  We typically send peoplefor dialysis when the function is around 23-25%.  But since we continue to see improvement we’ll continue to hold off.”
I was a little confused, I was under the impression from talking with my “ex” that from the start they were around 25% function.  Somehow that info transferred wrong probably due to both our stress.  Either way this was new news so I  asked him, “Just to be clear you said his kidneys are now functioning at 22%,  but there were at 8?”
“Yes, that’s right.  That’s on a scale of 1-100.  100 Being excellent.”
“8%?… 8?… Well.  That was…was…well…”
My brain was going into a bit of overload reeling with unspoken thoughts, “8% out of a hundred.  My god that’s nearly 0.  How low can a person go?  Does death set in if you are at 0?  Like with your heart?”  But nothing was coming out.  I was processing, trying to come up clear on this.  What this meant.  What the kidneys did…all without asking what seemed like a ridiculous/obvious question.  Just as I was about to form the question anyway, because I wanted to know the doctor, who must have sensed what I was thinking, said, “Yes, Zac only had hours to possibly days to live.”
“Goodness it seems that his appointment came at the exact moment necessary to save his life,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows as he processed that fact, nodded and said, “It would seem that it did.”
While looking at Zac I stammered, “He seemed so…so…I mean, it would have come as a complete surprise if…  Then I looked over at the doctor in a state of bewilderment.  Did we not know anything was changing because he can’t feel anything from just below his rib cage down that kept him from knowing there was a problem with his kidneys?”
“Renal failure is really a silent alarm…” Then he went on to explain how feeling in the kidneys works and why it goes undetected.  And why people will die suddenly…

Tonight I’m going to say again that I’m so thankful.  Thankful to have Zac today.  He had two drastic situations in his body: his potassium levels were so high  he could have had a heart attack at any minute AND his kidneys were all but shut down.  So I’m thankful.
Thankful For:
1) The Medical Community.  For their tests that caught the problem and intervention of placing an indwelling catheter the Friday morning (after the Wednesday clinic).  Thankful for the other various things that they’ve done since for Zac’s recovery process.
2) For my Naturopath, John Solomon Sandridge, thankful he told me that very night what supplements to put him on and how he must have his diet drastically changed.
It’s hard to imagine what would be if every little thing hadn’t gone exactly as it did…

We still have a very long race to run.  His kidneys have a lot of revitalizing to do.  They removed the indwelling catheter today so his kidneys and bladder will again be called upon, making his cathing vitally crucial.  However he will have a catheter in place during the night while he sleeps so urine flows into a bag so no pressure is building on his kidneys.  Zac’s body can in no way tolerate a single missed cath, anymore than it can him not eating right for every meal or not taking his supplements and meds.  We are still in the move by move, hour by hour recovery process, and we will be here for awhile, doing what we’ve been doing.

The next two weeks are very critical.  The tests at the next appointment will show how his kidneys are handling not having urine released constantly and flowing into a leg bag.  There’s a good bit of medical detail here that I’m going to skip, but that’s the basic information to help you get the gist.

We also had a lengthy dialysis informational appointment today and…well… let’s just say, we don’t want to go there.  Just for starters there is no recovery.  And the process of doing it daily…again…well…

We didn’t have the kidney transplant meeting yet.  That’s was bumped till next time, but the little that was covered with that…well…let’s just say, we don’t want to go there either, it isn’t as easy as, shall we say changing out a part on your car.

The doctor did write the excuse for Zac to only have half days and I’m thankful because Zac has been falling asleep in his afternoon history class and as he says, “And I like that class.”

After said appointment I worked for a family I haven’t seen in awhile and caught up with their mom when she got home.  Then around 7 picked up Grace so we could have a Walmart “shopping excursion”…you know…pick up a few groceries, then: check out the electronics, $5 movies, post-it notes, cute nail files, jewelry, the new Swiffer 360 degree duster…Kept her out longer than I probably should have.  Who knew you could have so much fun in Walmart?

Have a super day, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-oh Tuesday Zac’s principal called and expressed an apology for how a couple of the teachers were at the meeting on Monday

Tags: catheter, kidney, kidney failure, recovering from renal kidney failure

Trackback URI | Comments RSS