Nephrolgoy Update

Logan had his monthly nephrology appt yesterday. I was expecting bad news because he felt like hell and he woke up that night at 1 am and then tossed and turned and never did get back to sleep. Meaning mommy didn't get to sleep at all that night. But, surprisingly his labs were great! They were probably the best they've been since before he started dialysis. His potassium and phosphorous were in a perfect range. His protein and iron were up. His iron was actually almost in normal range again. His protein was the probably the highest it's ever been. His weight was up to 9.08 (a little over 20 lbs for the calculation challenged) (after 6 diarrhea dipes and 4 throw ups). AND Dr Al-Akash said that IF he was 9.5 kg at his next appt they would probably go ahead and activate him on the list and that the weight for a kidney would not be long at all. He said (I'm sure joking), "We'll probably call you on the way home."

I am soooooooooo excited as we've been waiting for this for what seems like forever (but really is only about 13 months). But, on the other hand, I'm scared to death too. Such a scary thing to hand your baby over to be cut open from nipples to groin. Logan's two hernia surgeries didn't bother me much. His placement of the feeding tube, dialysis cath, and mediport did--during and after but directly before it didn't. Of course, that could have been because I had basically NO time to process the info and with my grandma having past away the week before, I think I was just on auto pilot. During the surgery the clock NEVER moved or so it seemed to me anyway. Afterwards, I was so sad that he had to be cut so many places. Once in the neck and near his nipple and several spots in the abdomen. I gasped and my heart fell onto the floor when I first saw him. It hurt to look. But, now it just looks normal and when I hold other babies his age I am always careful not to pull on their feeding tube. Oh what? That's right, they don't have one! LOL. It feels more normal to hold Baby Matthew because at least he has the dialysis cath and it feels normal to me.

And speaking of babies....... I got to hold a little one this afternoon. I made a house call to help a mom with latch on and I got to hold her little one while she pumped to relieve engorgement. Byt the time I left baby was nursing much more comfortably than the piercing pain she was experiencing before. YAY! It made me feel great as lately I feel like I'm basically worthless to anyone. I feel kind of torn in so many directions that I feel like I'm not doing anyone right. And speaking of babies again. He was so adorable! He was squishy and smelt like a newborn. Ahhhh...... I swear if money and time were no object I would have 15 babies.

And onto Logan again, he is doing awesome (if you don't count the endless diarrhea and vomiting). He is running all over the place and he ate more by mouth today then I think he has some whole months--in fact, I'm sure. He had about 6 bites of vanilla yogurt, a strawberry, 2 bites of banana, and a whole bunch of tortilla chips. I know, tortilla chips are so unhealthy but for anyone who has a dialysis baby they will tell you that if you can get them to eat by mouth you will basically give them anything since it's almost a miracle.

Since we are basically down to the finish line, I asked Dr A if it would be better to wait on a live donor kidney or to give him a deceased donor kidney and he said it was my choice. So I asked him what his opinion on it was. And he said his opinion was that if we had a kidney available we should get it in him since life span directly correlates with kidney function. Logan's BUN is still high (it's been higher though) and his creatinine is 4.9. That's probably the highest it's ever been. Who knew we would long for the 2.0-3.0s we got in NICU? I needed to hear his opinion on this since I find him the expert on this at least much more so than I am. I trust him. Which is odd because I'm not normally quite as trusting of drs. He's almost more like family to us.

Well, I guess I had better head to bed as the past several days I haven't gotten much sleep. I hope all is well in the lives of those who read my blog.