Its happened. The long awaited drop below 15% has arrived this month when I find my kidney function is 14%.<\/p>\n
For a long time the magic number was 20% and I broke that barrier quite some time ago. In fact at the time I smashed the 20% mark dialysis was expected within a year. Since then and as a result of several convesations with different consultants I have found that dialysis may well not happen until I am below 10% or more like 8%. The 15% mark is now about transplant. I have been offered a kidney by my son, Anthony, who insists I have it, I dont think I’ll accept. He has his life in front of him and may need a spare for better reasons than me. His own children maybe. <\/p>\n
So 15% needs to be broken 3 times in a row but then I’ll go on the transplant list. Apparently there is an approx 18 month wait and some more tests, an operation, and a barrage of anti rejection drugs and I may get some life back. In the meantime I am left with my symptoms which are itching and tiredness. The tiredness has been markedly worse the last few months and is obviously explained by the drop.<\/p>\n
There may be reasons for 15%. Firstly I generally have a lower result in January. This recovers at my next text usually in May. (So maybe 15 or 16 this year). Secondly this result comes with a raised calcium level. I have had other levels raised in the past – potassium being one, which I have managed with diet. The elevated calcium could me modified by reducing one of the medications I take to supplement the activity of my parathyroid gland, which on reduced instruction from my reduced kidneys produces less calcium? If I have the dose this may force my parathyroid to work harder and produce a more normal amount of calcium. You can tell I dont quite understand that too well but something there is true!! In conclusion though reduced calcium (more activive parathyroid) plus seasonal bounceback may result in increased kidney function. I have a retest in 3 weeks. so we’ll know more then. <\/p>\n
Emotionally this has been tough. I have rallied before. Done a lot of work around acceptance. Thought about choices. Thought about the previous paragraph stuff etc. but I cant help feeling I have done my best for 6+ years and now the final slope is in sight. Who knows what next. I have always thought my condition will ‘get me’ and I cant stave it off indefinitely but it was starting to feel like I was winning. Maybe not. Hey ho!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Its happened. The long awaited drop below 15% has arrived this month when I find my kidney function is 14%. For a long time the magic number was 20% and I broke that barrier quite some time ago. In fact at the time I smashed the 20% mark dialysis was expected within a year. Since then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,17],"tags":[24,25],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kidneys","category-life","tag-kidneys","tag-results"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Kidney-Health.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4iQp0-3t","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lupson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}