Here I am, 3+ weeks out from surgery, heading towards 4 weeks and doing great (well ... great-ish). My incision is healed, I can drive again, walk as much as I want and do most things by myself. That is the “glory" of laparoscopic surgery with robot assist! While I am still limited in lifting stuff and I can't vacuum this very dirty house yet (which only bothers me - not my husband - because he is blind), I am feeling very fortunate to be living in an area of the country where this advanced technology and skilled surgeons using this technique are readily available to me. Add that to my very supportive family, and you have a near perfect experience.
But it is “near” perfect only.
The remaining kidney has been a little slow in picking up the pace of its job. The kidneys are very hard working little organs that don't get enough credit for the work they do - until they don't and then you got trouble. In fact, you would never know there was a problem until you are in serious trouble. My remaining kidney (I will call her Leona going forward - 😁 in honor of my mom, her middle name, who suffered with kidney disease most of her life and died of kidney failure and dementia), Leona was expected to take a dip in her functioning, according to the surgeon right after surgery. And she did dip by about 20 points off normal function. Two weeks later she had dipped another 5 points. hmmm. But some other values were abnormal and my surgeon asked me to make a few adjustments to my eating and 4 days later I repeated the lab work. Previous abnormals were corrected but Leona was now down about another 5 points ... treading very close to levels of kidney failure.
Hey ... what gives, Leona!!!
But my surgeon and my internist both were ok with the values, so who am I to argue. My own research indicates that kidneys are slow to adjust to change and that Leona could take months, maybe a year or more, to reach a level that is normal for me. In the meantime, I have to eat healthy (well ... I will have to eat healthy the rest of my life, of course,) drink a lot of water every day and get various labs and diagnostic tests to track Leona’s progress. And while I wait, I feel pretty good. I have to remind myself that all is not yet back to normal and won’t be for some time. But to look at me - I am good!
And I think I mentioned that they also discovered that I have an enlarged liver. Today I saw my GI doctor and we had quite a chat. They will be tracking this liver now. And, of course, there is a diet for that liver (that is somewhat different from the kidney diet that I must also follow) and that discussion resulted in a referral to a speciality nutritionist who can help me sort through both conditions. I’ll table that discussion for another post - after I see her in a few weeks. My GI doc said that enlarged fatty livers are a quiet pandemic in our country due to SAD - the Standard American Diet. It is known that 30% of our population has this condition and there are probably another 10-20% who have it and don’t know they have it. She said she even has it! Without diet and exercise intervention the condition can develop into scarring on the liver and lead to cirrhosis ... and eventually liver failure. An special MRI test called an Elastography has been ordered. It will look for any scarring or cirrhosis. She feels pretty sure my liver is ok for a number of reasons - one of which is the normal contours have not changed - it is just too big. A good sign. That test won’t happen until September when I am entirely healed.
I haven’t come up with a good name for my liver yet. I am open to suggestions. 😃
So that is my current status. I’ll be back sooner rather than later - I have many many pictures on my phone of stuff I wanted to post to the blog. It has just been a very busy time.
Talk again soon.
