Saturday, February 6, 2010

Introductory Message

G'day

Yet another attempt to diary my writing experience. The last one "Eye of the Robot" http://eyeoftherobot.blogspot.com/ which I intended to encompass my thoughts on Life the Universe and Everything died then slowly resurrected itself as renal failure diary.

I've decide to leave it doing its thing and start again with the writing blog. In fact I'll probably need three. One for Life (and the kidney problem) one for the Universe (of writing) and one for Everything (else)

Three is good. I like three. I'm writing a trilogy.


Coming soon to a blog near you
The trials and tribulations of writing a trilogy


Ooroo

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

On the Cusp

Yesterday the bad news.

The remaining functionality of my single kidney has dropped 3% in the last 4 weeks from 15% to 12%. The sudden drop seems to be a feature of my progressively failing kidney. It has been stable at 15%-16% for the last six months after a drop from 23% with the removal of other kidney.

I haven't felt any change. My appetite, weight, and blood pressure are all good. Every visit to the specialist which showed no change in the blood work encouraged an optimistic view; that the daily cocktail of drugs had halted the decline, that this benignly stable state could go on indefinitely.

Yesterday was a wake up call

For starters, I'm six months older. That might not seem like much but it shortens the window of opportunity in which have a transplant from seven and a half years to six. At my age every month counts. Then again maybe that's my particularly dire circumstances talking. 10% kidney function is the cutoff point (transplant, dialysis or death follows) and I just dropped 3% to 12% in 4 weeks. It may stabilize again but I wouldn't count on it. It is more likely I'll be under the knife sometime soon.

There is sense of urgency now that wasn't there before. My next appointment with the skin specialist to check the treatment I had for Bowen's disease has been brought forward from March to this afternoon. The treated ear has been a problem ever since treatment; it itches, feels hot and can't strand the sun. I can sense it now in a way I never could before and can't for the untreated ear.

This could be because the treatment spurs on the immune system to heal the disease. (one reason why the treatment has to be finished before transplant because transplant requires the suppression of the immune system). Equally it could be that I can feel it because I know I have it. In the same vein, yesterday's startling drop in function convinced me I could feel the pain in my kidney.

So here's fate that's worse than death - contemplating it. Young healthy people never give it a thought.