Photo: One of J's doctors informs me of her status.
As you may have noticed I've started to call her 'J'...there's no reason to make it too easy to find stuff about her if we don't want you to.
Well apparently I was wrong about waiting 2 weeks before starting dialysis because I was informed this morning that J is having a port put in today and will start dialysis as soon as possible. I just love having such detailed and timely information. All the information I have so far is that she will probably undergo dialysis at least 3 times a week, but of course it's too early to tell.
I am hoping that the dialysis will help her to overcome the nausea and chronic pain. From what I've read it should help her feel better, and will hopefully allow her body to recover somewhat. At the very least, it should reduce the discomfort of the excess water weight that she has gained over the past few weeks, which is driving her crazy. There is no information on how long she will be on, but I am guessing that she may be on dialysis until she is up for the kidney/pancreas transplant surgery.
J's emotional state could be better of course, and I'm sure this news doesn't help her to feel any better. I'm trying to spin it as positive as possible, and I do think it will help her more than hurt at this stage. I think the worst for her is the feeling that Kaiser doesn't seem to know what the hell it's doing with her, and she's much to smart to be fooled by them. I don't know that she is wrong in that belief either which keeps me up nights.
In other news I bought a nice used laptop on Ebay for J, and should get it within a week. I got it for her in the hopes that she could use it to write, play games, watch DVDs...generally have more control over her daily activities than just TV and...pain. It has WiFi built in but have received conflicting reports on whether or not it is available in the hospital, so don't send those emails to her just yet.
Definition and details of dialysis here for those who may want more information.
3 comments:
Hi Mr. Paul! Thank you so much for doing this--it's really nice to keep up with J's status and at the same time, I think it's probably easier for you instead of telling the same story many times over.
Did you decorate her room for Halloween?
From what I heard from the doctor the other day, I am hopeful that the dialysis really will make her feel better -- I got the impression that her "leaky" kidneys have just polluted her system, so a new filter may be just what she needs to clean out her system (particularly if they add "Techron" - ha ha). If she can just feel well enough to enjoy her new wi fi laptop, at least that's a step in the right direction.
My fortune cookie last night said "Good thoughts make life better." I'm sending some good thoughts your way (remembering to keep some for myself, of course).
I really hope she gets WiFi there. If not, let us know so we can mail USB keychains loaded with useless yet entertaining crap.
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