A Few Updates

Hello everyone. I have a few updates to make this evening before I go to bed.

First off, I got an e-mail from Kala this week. She has her two appointments scheduled, for January 2 and 18. So, hopefully, once the transplant people get her results from the 18th test, we should be able to set up a date for the surgery. This is great news, I'm glad that things are moving forward.

I had dialysis on Thursday night. I got a good stick, which is always nice. About half-way through my treatment, the technicians turned the machine of the guy across from me, and I saw that he was running at 450 ml/min. Now, I had been previously told that it would not do you any good to go faster than 400. When the nurse came to check on me (like they normally do), she asked if she could do anything for me. I told her that I wanted to run at 450 like that other guy and get a better dialysis treatment. She was able to turn the machine up to 440 (my fistula wouldn't let it go any faster). She said I need to talk to the doctor and have him up my prescribed dialysis to 450 so that they always set it higher. I was able to get a 1.73 Kt/V (as opposed to the 1.4 that I normally have been getting).

The Kt/V is how well your dialysis is doing. The K is the amount of waste removed, the t is the time you dialyze, and the V is your blood volume. The goal for most patients is 1.4 or above. The only way to increase this number is to increase the K or the t, or to decrease your V. Since my volume is not going down, and they are unlikely to give me longer dialysis treatments, the only thing I can do to get a better dialysis is to remove more waste. Since my flow rate is around 1300 or 1400, I don't see any problem with running the machine faster than 400 (as long as the needles end up in the right places). The faster the machine runs, the greater the amount of my blood that gets cleaned, and the higher my K value becomes, thus increasing the Kt/V. That's it for the math lesson for tonight.

I had the rest of my "transplant evaluation" tests today. I went in for an EKG, and echocardiogram, and a nuclear stress test. These were to complete my yearly evaluation to stay on the transplant list. The EKG is a simple test where they hook up electrodes to your chest and check the electrical activity of your heart for one minute. The echocardiogram is basically a sonogram done on your heart. You lay there, and they "look" at your heart with sound waves on a special machine, similar to how a new mother gets her unborn baby examined. The final test is the nuclear medicine stress test. They inject you with a radioactive dye, and then run some scans of your heart (for 15 minutes). After this, we hooked up another EKG and got a baseline reading. I then started walking on a treadmill. Based on my age, weight, and height, they wanted my heart rate to get to 163. The treadmill got faster and increased its incline every couple of minutes. Once I reached 163 (after 12 minutes), they injected some more nuclear medicine. Then I had to run for 30 seconds longer as they took one last EKG (which they had been doing every minute during the test). After the running was over, they gave me some juice and let me cool down. Then, they had me do one more scan in the machine that checks the radioactive dye in your heart. I almost fell asleep on the table, since you just have to lay there very still and quiet in a dark room.

The doctor went over my results with me. I have a mitral valve prolapse, and have known this for about six years. I get it checked every year or so, and it has never been a problem. Mitral valve prolapse is a heart problem in which the valve that separates the left upper and lower chambers of the heart does not open and close properly. So, instead of blood flowing only one direction, a little bit of blood "regurgitates" backwards to the chamber it was coming from. This is a very common heart condition. The only thing I have to do for it is to take antibiotics before going to the dentist. This keeps plaque from breaking off, getting into your bloodstream, and getting stuck down in your heart (that's bad).

It seems that my prolapse has gotten worse over the past year. Last year's test revealed that I had a "moderate" prolapse. This year, the doctor said that it was severe. He said that eventually, I will need to have valve replacement surgery. This sounded extreme, so I had him explain it to me. He said that they will trim the mitral valve, and then place a plastic ring around the outside of the valve, to make it a little smaller. This way, the blood will not be able to flow backwards. He said that it is a very simple surgery. I asked him what he wanted to do, seeing as I was facing a potential transplant.

He conferred with the kidney transplant team, and they decided that since I was in no immediate danger, that the valve replacement is not currently necessary. He said I will probably need to do it in 5 years or so, but by that time, I should be used to all of my anti-rejection medications and not be having any problems with the new kidney. He said that I am going to need to follow closely with my regular cardiologist on my mitral valve, and that it will probably need to be checked more than once a year. That is fine, since it means they can catch it before anything terrible happens.

Well, it looks like tonight's post was long, sorry about that. Please continue to pray for Kala and I as we wait on her tests in January. And, pray that my mitral valve will not cause any problems for a long, long time. Thanks for coming by!!