Here's how he ended up in the hospital: He was supposed to work that day from 1 to 10, but at 10:30am, he'd called his doctor with the same complaints as he had from calling on Friday morning, too. On Friday morning, he was throwing up and just not feeling like himself. Same thing Saturday morning. But this time, the doctor said he'd better come in, to check into the emergency room, just to be sure.
Most of you reading this will know that Rob has PKD, or Polycystic Kidney Disease. But if you didn't know that, it's a genetic disease that he inherited from his Dad's side of the genes that basically makes your kidneys stop working, and then you need dialysis and eventually a kidney transplant. Many of the Newton aunts, uncles and cousins have it. More PKD info.
Here are some images from his MRI scan done on January 26:
So in this picture, you can see how big Rob's kidneys are, and how many cysts he has. This is a transverse view from the bottom. The kidney on the left (his right kidney) is much bigger than the other. When I first saw this scan my first thought was that Rob looked like he had a fetal pig inside him! (hey, if you can't laugh at the rough stuff in life, it's just going to suck more) The other kidney is big, too, you just can't see it in this section cut. Imagine sliding up an inch or so toward his head. Here's an image of that:
What you're seeing here is the result of a burst cyst. That blob above the kidney on the left is fluid from the cyst. The fluid is just floating around in his peritoneal cavity (I think? I was so fascinated seeing these images that I missed a few things the doctor said!) The fluid eventually caused a condition called "ileus", which means that there was a temporary paralysis of his intestines. You can't eat anything when you have this, except ice chips, but then again, when you're in a lot of pain like Rob was, you don't want to eat, you just want to sleep all day because the pain meds are so numbing.
Rob's liver is also enlarged and has a couple of small cysts, too. I don't know why, but many PKD patients also have these effects on their livers? Maybe one of my doctor or nurse friends will know the answer. Here's a view of the largest section of his liver:
Now, here's a view of what a normal kidney, liver, spleen, intestines, should look like.
So you can see that Rob's kidneys are about 4-5 times larger than normal size ones. One doctor told Rob that his right kidney (the big one) is about as big as a football. Yeah, a football. They're supposed to be as big as your fist. Wow.
So to conclude, Rob stayed in the hospital from that Saturday morning until Thursday afternoon. Rob started dialysis while in the hospital, on Wed. Jan 30. He will remain on dialysis until he has a kidney transplant, which could be a few more years. We don't know what caused the burst cyst.
But life is very different now for Rob, and me, too. Rob gets up at 5:45am every Mon, Wed, and Fri, for dialysis, and he's not a morning person, so this is a big deal to him. He drives to the Davita clinic (about 8 miles away) and sits in a chair with a 15 gauge needle in his arm for about 3.5 hours. He usually has Monday and Wednesdays off from work, because dialysis is very tiring for most people. Luckily, Rob hasn't felt that extreme tiredness, and he uses those days off for projects around the house or working extra hours with Scott. The dialysis diet has been the biggest change for me. I am cooking more, and cooking healthier, less-processed foods. Rob is losing weight, and that's a good thing. We hope to be able to transition to the at-home-dialysis soon. That will definitely free up some time on Rob's schedule, and he won't have to be around all those annoying people at the Davita clinic!
Well that's all for now. I have a feeling I won't be writing much about swimming, cycling and other fun adventures. And I'm okay with that. More updates later. Be sure to check back soon!
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