Kidney...

I vowed to catch up here, and holding true I thought I would give a quick re-cap of what we did this week. Kidney JUNK. I've had some chronic kidney issue's over the last year. Significant stones, infections, stones, surgery, more stones and more infections. So when I started getting the flank back pain again a few weeks back, I figured I was passing another stone. I have been trying to nurse myself back to health, and fight off the stone at home. Well Monday it all proved to be too much for me; I had been vomiting for days, had so much pain, endured a few sleepless nights - and frankly seen way too much blood in my urine for WAY to many days. Spoke with the Doctor and went to the ER on Monday night. Thought I may need a round of IV antibiotics and figured I should have the stone thing figured out. Turns out I needed all the above and it was REALLY a good thing that I went in when I did. I was in complete kidney failure on the left side, I had/have 2 stones obstructing all urine from filtering through that kidney. I was in complete left kidney failure by Monday night, and by Wed I was in surgery. All ventricles in my kidney were dilated, the kidney was shutting down and very infected. I had a left percutaneous nephrostomy tube surgically placed into the kidney. I can't have the surgery for the stones until my kidney recovers and all infection drains out. When I left the hospital on Friday night the urologist felt that my kidney was functioning at about 30% and believes that I have upwards of an 80% chance of keeping my kidney. For now I'm home with the ones I love, along with morphine, antibiotics, and this new lovely drain. I have a few surgeries ahead, but think that I'm lucky to be where I'm at. Thanks for checking in with us, and hopefully I will continue to have good news to post!!