Dialysis Day 41

The Cat

I don't normally blog about things outside of dialysis, but how about this one. Our cat spent most of Monday throwing up all over our carpet. Since then, nothing, but he hasn't been eating well. So, I called the doctor and we went in yesterday. The symptoms weren't telling the doc much so he took some blood to check his KIDNEY FUNCTIONS! Seriously, the cat might have kidney failure, too? I know it's common in cats, but let's be real. We don't need this right now! They are also checking his liver, thyroid and white blood count to see if it's an infection. Let's hope it's something easy...and cheap!

Back to Dialysis

My iron is low...common in pregnancy and in dialysis patients. I'll bet getting 100 mg for 10 treatments and then once a week after that. I was only getting 50 mg once a week.

Around 28 weeks it's common practice to get a glucose test. It's a half-hour test where you drink this orange fizzy stuff and then they check you blood sugar. If you "fail" this test then you take a test that lasts 4 hours. You drink the same stuff and they take your blood every hour or half hour to see if you truly have gestational diabetes. Since I'm on Prednisone, my doctors are sure that I will "fail" the short test. They said there's no reason for me to go through that test. So, I would move straight to the 4-hour test. It can't be done during dialysis since they are cleaning my blood while I'm here, so it would be another 4 hours probably on a Thursday. We've decided that instead of that I will just get a glucose meter and test my blood at home for a while. I'm sure that if my levels look good I won't have to keep it up for long. But in the meantime, I got my meter and have prescriptions for supplies to last 3 months. I'm meeting with the diabetes nurse this afternoon to learn how to do it.

I also have an echo today. Should be quick and no big deal. I just hope I have time to get something to eat between all of these appointments.

Today's OB nurse got here before I did today, so that was nice. I got on really quick. She looks surprised by how cold it is. She's got a sweater but is still shivering. It is a little chilly today. Uh oh, she's already standing up and staring out the window. We're only 1 hour in!

"Martha" had a little fit this morning. She told the nurse that she just put on her earrings and one fell out. Nope, "Martha," no earrings around here! I can't imagine that she's with-it enough to put earrings on before she comes to dialysis. We don't normally get all dolled up before treatments!

...nurse just got herself a heated blanket...