the raw deal....and i wish i were talking about veggies.

first, i said i would explain about the dehydration issue and what it is doing to my body and what is causing it. many things are causing it....my inability to drink enough to stay hydrated, my inability to eat enough protein and keep enough in my system, the building up of fluid in my belly and then robbing my body of what little fluid and protein it has by draining 3-4ltrs off at a time ultimately "shocking" my system. because of these things, this is what the body does to compensate.

shocking my system with the large paras is taking its tole on my other kidney and since ive only got one good one, they are very cautious with it. when i shock my body with the drains, my body compensates with a sort of "osmosis" that takes place. when they drain 4 or even 3 off, it suddenly creates a void and my body wants to fill that void. so, fluid from my vascular system, my major organs (heart, lungs, kidney) is essentially "stolen" and goes to the void to even things out. your vascular system is basically a closed system. oxygenated and nutrient filled blood leaves from one side of the heart travels around and separates into many tiny capillaries that meet up with another set of capillaries which take the "used" blood back around. (to put is very simply). at any rate, the vascular system needs 5 ltrs of fluid in order to function correctly. when you rob it of this fluid, certain organs begin to deteriorate and lose functionality. this is what dr. doom believes is happening to my kidney because of the dehydration. its not just a matter of drinking more....its much more complicated than that. one way to possibly help this is to take a little at a time....thus the reason they pushed for the tap/tube thing in my belly. this is all of a sudden a big concern because my creatinine level went from a 2 to a 3.82 in two weeks and even after receiving fluid yesterday, it only came down to a 3.36 or so. (sidebar: Creatinine is made at a steady rate and is not affected by diet or by normal physical activities. If your kidneys are damaged and cannot work normally, the amount of creatinine in your urine goes down while its level in your blood goes up.) this makes dr. doom VERY nervous. so nervous that he is bringing in a kidney specialist because he is worried that we are getting into non-reversible territory and headed towards renal failure. this of course would be bad since lefty is shot and righty is all i've got.

so, he is scheduling a consult appt with the renal specialist so that she can assess the situation. go over my meds to see if there is anything that could be causing or adding to the problem there, steps we can take to help, etc, etc.

now everyone should cross their fingers, toes, arms, legs for righty! he needs all the help he can get!