Wednesday’s lab visit was mostly routine. My hemoglobin was 9.8 so I did get an Aranesp shot. It had been a little over a month since the last one. My creatinine was back down to 1.3 (it was 1.5 last week) so perhaps the dehydration was responsible for the increase. My eGFR was 46. Today … Continue reading Beat the Time →

Vacation is over. Back to the grind. We did have a lovely time in Silver City. And I did make it up to the ruins at the Gila Cliff Dwellings. I felt like crap though. It was very reminiscent of the Acropolis, in that I was scrambling from one place to sit to another. I … Continue reading The Routine Beckons →

Costa Rica, October 2019. That was the last time I took a trip. (No, I am not counting my drive to Pennsylvania last summer. There was not an ounce of pleasure in that trip.) Obviously 2020 was a wash travel-wise for everyone. I had planned to go to Hawaii with Rose in the spring and … Continue reading Stepping Stones →

Damn. Long day today. Started off with a patient in the office at 7:00 am. Then an hour’s drive west to one of our clinics to see two patients out there. Then headed back east 15 minutes to a Native American nursing home to see two patients there. Then back to the office to try … Continue reading Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana? →

Two important appointments this week. The first was with Dr. E, my endocrinologist. She reminds me a bit of a hummingbird. She is tiny and in constant motion—not in a bad way, but you can tell her mind is always spinning. I’ve learned not to get too attached to doctors because when I have a … Continue reading “A Problem of Success” →

My experiment with cutting my lisinopril seems to have helped. My creatinine this week was back down to 1.4, and my GFR increased to 40. My BP is still doing very well so I’m going to stay on the 20 mg lisinopril for another week to monitor and then try stopping it all together and … Continue reading I Got Your Meme Right Here →

Well, as is typical, this entry will mostly be a repeat of previous stuff. Nothing earthshatteringly new. My last visit at the lab was two weeks ago as the previous week was my “off” week. My hemoglobin this past Wednesday had dropped to 9.7, so this was an Aranesp week. And I was wrong last … Continue reading Peanut Butter To The Rescue →

Amazingly, everything is still heading in the right direction.Last week, my hemoglobin was 10.5, a smidge down from the week before (10.6). So no Aranesp once again. The last time I had to get a shot was 7/28/2021. Pretty good! Hopefully I’ll get to skip next week too. My creatinine continues to hold steady at … Continue reading Can’t Complain… But You Know I Still Will →

But in my case, I’ll take boring. Boring means stable, and I’ll take that over all hell breaking loose. I'm pretty boring anyway, so it works for me. My hemoglobin was 10.6, a small decline from last week’s 10.9 but still good. No Aranesp. No Aranesp is the goal. My creatinine was 1.3, same as … Continue reading Short and Sweet and Boring →

Wow. My hemoglobin was 10.9 today. WOW!  That’s a record-breaker for me! I can definitely tell the boost in my energy over the past week and a half. And that’s not even “normal,” which is 12 or higher. But when I’m in the 10s I can surely tell the difference. I’m going to assume the … Continue reading Hold On To Your Hat! →