It has never happened that both Chris and I have left the kids. That’s not to say they have not had sleep overs, but we were nearby if needed.
Last year I went to England for 2 weeks (huge deal for me) to meet my beautiful niece and see my sister and her extended family. I was anxious and excited but knew that Chris would be amazing with our kids and he did not let me down.
Even though our trip to the Nephrologist in Cape Town was only a few days it was the both of us going. Chris even suggested I stay, he can handle it alone.
Well that was a Hard NO!
The children, right now needed me less than he did. With supportive friends and family, they would be fine.
Until now my husband was a man who hardly ever gotten sick, so checking him into the Panorama clinic was surreal for us both.
The Specialist physician in Port Elizabeth had ruled out all the likely causes of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). We now knew it wasn’t Diabetes, High Blood Pressure or any number of Auto immune diseases.
He had also, via an ultrasound confirmed that it was definitely CKD as the kidneys were substantially shrunken (the sign of a slow progressive kidney disease).
All that we had read and heard so far had us hell bent on finding and treating the cause so as to stop the damage getting worse, it makes sense. Treating him for CKD but ignoring Diabetes or High BP for example would be silly.
The next step towards an answer to the cause was a biopsy. This is why we were here in CT, for the answers to the many questions running on a loop round our heads.
You can imagine our surprise when on meeting our wonderful Nephrologist one of the first things he told us is we can’t biopsy.
Turns out when the kidneys reach 8cm or below (which both of his are) it is too risky to biopsy.
“But! What do you think is the cause?” I asked.
“Knowing the cause would be great, but at this point the treatment will not be effected either way. It is likely it was some kind of inflammatory infection that set it off. It would have taken the kidneys years to shrink to this size.” He informed us.
Deflated we reflected on fitting more questions into the already full loops circling our minds…the answers did not seem very concrete.
The questions were piling up.
I tried to look on the positive side, no biopsy, no other horrible illness to deal with on top of CKD.
But while we were there he wanted us to meet with a dietitian for a very specific and crazy, kidney disease diet. Chris rebelled immediately. I did too, though less vehemently.
Everything you think is healthy seemed suddenly to not be healthy for him.
And things that I had stopped stocking in my house like white bread, rusks and all the whites over healthier browns were now a better option for him.
Great, Caleb, Ella and I don’t do well on wheat, try getting kids to not eat rusks and white bread if its available…aaaaaghh.
Curve ball after curve ball.
The other thing he wanted us to do was meet with one of the sisters from the dialysis clinic to see what the options were and start to get our heads around it.
The sister showing us the ropes was lovely, but I could feel us both resisting every step. Seeing the PD (peritoneal dialysis) side was challenging enough.
Walking into the haemodialysis ward was brutal.
I am an empath, I feel energies and emotions from others. Within 30 seconds I was feeling dizzy and nauseous. I needed to get out of there, breathe, nod, breathe, thank the lady who let us be witness to her treatment if only for a moment.
Thankfully we were out before I embarrassed myself by feinting or vomiting (it has happened more than once).
Thank you’s all around and we got out of the whole place as fast as we could.
Reeling, our consensus was, No, this was not for us!
We would fight this battle holistically, dialysis was a bitch.
The doctor seeing how much Chris’ numbers had improved from the first blood test to the second agreed to see what we could do with the next 3 weeks before we decided.
This was a big deal as only a few weeks had passed between blood tests. It was a testament to our intense lifestyle changes, but we only moved his Granular Filtration Rate from 6 to 7, where it should be 90.
Leaving there I tried to shut out Sister A's words that were resolutely runny through my mind, "Don't wait too long, or you will miss the window for PD."
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