On Friday nights my mother comes over for dinner. When she got to my house, she asked me what the doctor said. I said I wanted to wait until Kyle got there so I could tell them both together. I tried to just sound "normal." Telling people news like this is really awful. I went … Continue reading Breaking the News →

February 7, 2020. Friday. Another multiple appointment day. The first was with the lab at the hematology office and because my hemoglobin was 10, I did not get an EPO shot today. After that, I headed over to Women’s Hospital for a mammogram because life still goes on. (Ladies, you current on your mammograms? If … Continue reading Diagnosis, FINALLY. AKA, Be Careful What You Wish For. →

January 30, 2020 When this biopsy initially got scheduled, no one called me to discuss a good date. No one even called me to tell me it had been scheduled. I just happened to see it on my phone via the app the doctor's office uses. I was pretty irritated by that. In addition, it … Continue reading Kidney Biopsy →

January 24, 2020 The lab work today indicated my hemoglobin was low enough to receive the shot. No big deal… just a shot and a band-aid and I was back on the road. Well, I went across the road. Luckily, most of my appointments are all clustered in one area, near Lovelace Hospital downtown. The … Continue reading First EPO Shot and Cardiology →

January 24, 2020 My colonoscopy was scheduled for January 20. The week prior to that I tried to get the prescription filled for the low volume solution. Walgreens didn’t have it. I called to several other pharmacies. No one had it. I emailed the provider who prescribed it who told me to check with a … Continue reading That Freakin’ Colonoscopy →

January 10, 2020 I went back to hematology, and it was decided that I should start on EPO shots. As a reminder, EPO is the hormone that stimulates the bone marrow to make red blood cells. My EPO levels were actually in the normal range but the thought was that a boost might help. It’s … Continue reading More Labs and a Mini-Plan →

December 31, 2019 I met with Dr. F again to go over the lab and urinalysis results. She stated that looking back through all the labs I had provided her, my kidney function actually started to decline in 2016. It was still within the normal range, but my creatinine had made a significant jump in … Continue reading Nephrology Follow Up →

Okay... this is my attempt at explaining what all this kidney stuff means. If I could do it in rhyme, Dr. Seuss fashion, I would, because that’s about the level of my understanding. So the kidneys… they filter pretty much everything. We got that. But they also are very important in the production of red … Continue reading Sidebar: eGFR, EPO, BUN, EIEIO. →

December 6, 2019 This is just kind of a weird story so I thought I would share it. In 2012, I had a wee cold and was flying to California to visit family. That wee cold got much worse, and during the night I developed a really wicked ear infection, and the pain was incredible. … Continue reading Endocrinology →

November 25, 2019 I saw the new kidney specialist directly after Thanksgiving. I liked Dr. F right away. She was aggressive. She said immediately that something was very wrong here, and that we needed to get to the bottom of it. She’s very direct, which I don’t mind at all. (She was also very loud. … Continue reading The Kidney Doctor—An Actual Doctor This Time →