Confessions of an Internet Junkie

Thank you for all of the wonderful birthday wishes. It made me blub a little bit, I have to admit. The day itself was not much in the way of birthday celebrating. That abscessed tooth of Dar's went really septic and spread to her ear. We spent yesterday trying to get it seen to at the oral surgeon's office, but after trying unsuccessfully to take care of it he said that nothing could be done until the infection was cleaned up. She's on massive antibiotics, and he's going to try again next Tuesday. Poor wifey is in a great deal of pain both from the abscess and from the side effects of the meds. Good vibes going Dar's way would be greatly appreciated.

I got a call from the nephrologist this morning. She had a sudden cancellation and wanted to know if I could make it in at 11AM. I could! I did! I really like her on both a professional and personal level, and I'm very glad that my rheumy referred me to her.

OK, the upshot is that she has no idea what's wrong with my kidneys. Hey, why should she be any different, right? There's definitely something wrong, but there's no clue as to what is causing it. So she's going to do a kidney biopsy in hopes that it will give us some kind of definite answer and a direction. She spent a good 10 minutes going over everything that could go wrong, but really . . . I want this done. I'm so tired of not having something known that I'm getting desperate for answers. There's a 50/50 chance that the biopsy will come back normal, but I'm willing to do this anyway. I don't have a definite date; her secretary will call back tomorrow I think. It should be within the next two weeks, and I'll have the report about six weeks after that.

The procedure itself is scheduled as day surgery and takes about 45 minutes. If everything goes well, they'll keep me about six hours after that just to keep an eye on me, then send me home. I'll have to go back in the next morning for an ultrasound to check for bleeding. If something goes wrong during the biopsy, I'll be in overnight.

The good news is that while my kidneys are functioning at about 60-65%, they've stabilized at that point. There's no further deterioration. Yay!

The kitten we call Jane (Dar sings that to her every morning *g*) is much improved, too. We took off her final fentanyl patch this morning, and she is one happy kitty not to have her hind leg all bandaged up. Her tongue is mostly healed and her jaw is coming along well, too. She's still not as bouncy as she used to be, but she's getting there. I took a deep breath later this afternoon and let her go outside with Chloe and Mao. She was thrilled, and she and Chloe romped around for a while. The new rule is that the cats can outside from mid-morning until late afternoon. I don't know that they necessarily grasp the time difference, but it makes their humans feel a little better.

And that's about it. We're hoping to have a quiet day tomorrow for a change. No running around, no doctors appointments. I think the weather is going to co-operate, too. I hope Dar is feeling a bit better by then, because that would be the icing on the cake.

I've been waiting to post until I had something definitive from my rheumatologist, but that doesn't look to be happening this week after all, so this is just an update. It's a long one, so I'll cut tag it. BTW, the icon for this isn't meant to be taken literally; I just don't have anything else that screams major *head desk* :)
( It's a movie of the week. Or maybe an ep from Arrested Development. )