Thursday, August 14, 2008

What is it with this family and kidneys?

As many of you know, my brother underwent a kidney transplant about six

years ago. My brother-in-law is currently on a dialysis schedule, and is on

the transplant list himself. Well, on Tuesday night I learned that my

mother had gone into the hospital with a kidney complaint. Here are the

details:



Mom was supposed to have a hip replacement back in June. As they were

prepping her for surgery, they discovered a urinary tract infection and

kidney stones. She's had both before. They removed the stones, but the UTI

has stubbornly refused to go away for the last two months. She also takes

medication for high blood pressure and diabetes, which can stress the

kidneys, and since she's not had the hip done, she has been taking a lot of

NSAIDs for the pain. All of these "insults" to the kidneys caused them to

basically shut down, so she was in the hospital taking in fluids, but not

excreting any.



The nephrologist (kidney specialist) has seen her, and he wants to do a

procedure to flush the kidneys out. This will involve taking her off of all

meds (except for pain meds) and giving her an IV coctail designed to help

the kidney. He also wants her blood pressure to rise to somewhere around

140/100. The increased fluid volume and pressure will facilitate the

"flushing".



She is stable and doing well, but is groggy. If you are interested in

sending her a card, contact me at yoyology -AT- gmail -DOT- com for her room

number. You can also fill out a form at

http://home.coxhealth.com/…tcards.asp and the hospital will

print out a card and send it to her.



We will greatly appreciate your thoughts and prayers at this time. Thank

you.

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