Yesterday's follow up visit in Rochester was LONG. The appointment was at 10:30, and she was to have labs before she went. We left the house at 6 AM, and arrived before 9. The plan was to get the labs done, and then go for breakfast.
She was in the lab for over an hour. This is, I hear, typical. For some reason, hospitals lost more phlebotomists than any other group of people when vaccine mandates were placed. None of us have recovered to pre-pandemic blood-draw capabilities, but DANG. We snagged some (perfectly terrible) breakfast sandwiches from the cafeteria and bolted upstairs for her appointment.
They were running behind, in large part to the lab delay. Some patients had given up on the lab and come upstairs because they didn't want to be late for their appointments, which meant that the nurses had to draw their blood, adding to the slowdown.
We'd met the doc last year when she got on the transplant list. Babygirl said, "I forgot what a....presence he is." He is, as they say, "a lot," but adorable, communicative, and upbeat. He was overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the new kidney. Babygirl is making more that 3L of urine a day, and it is finally completely clear. Her weight has dropped from 189 to 166 (2 gallons down, 3 to go!). Her potassium and phosphorus levels are normal: "Eat more of everything we told you not to eat or those levels will go too LOW." He remains concerned about her blood sugar and wants her to watch it more closely.
But the most exciting for me is that her creatinine has dropped from over 6 to 3.5. Normal is under 1, so we aren't there yet, but this was a massive change compared to the previous gradual creep toward normal. Transplant nephrology plans to notify dialysis nephrology, and let them know that they can come and take all of her dialysis stuff back. Babygirl is very excited about regaining some space!
The transplant pharmacist went over all of her medications in detail. One has been discontinued, and another decreased. Next appointment is Monday.
We arrived home at 5 PM. Thankfully, my SIL had come up from Philly and did all of the driving. I'm exhausted but I can't sleep right at the moment. I have a list of 8 phone calls I need to make today to cover things like paid leave, appointment rescheduling, and home financial stuff. It's clearly too early for that, so I'm going back to bed.
DeeDee
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