Dehydration Blues

We had a bit of a rough patch last night. I awoke about 2 AM to the sound of someone calling dinosaurs in our bathroom. Not good. This repeated itself about two hours later with the other end of the gastric system tossing its hat in the ring so to speak. No one wanted to be left out (or "in" in this case) it appears.

There is something about the wee small hours of the night that has always bothered me. It is so easy to think dark thoughts when you, or someone you love is sick in that long stretch between bedtime and dawn. Last night, I lay there and thought about kidney failure and what that bodes. Will C choose to do dialysis, or will this signal the beginning of the actual end?

The timing on this is not the best. C’s kidney function markers hit a new high yesterday and high marker numbers mean “low” kidney functionality. When the creatinine levels in the blood are high, the response is to increase the hydration of the patient. What you don’t want to see is any activity that contributes to dehydration like alcohol (negative – C hasn’t been doing any of that for over a year), caffeine (nope – same), strenuous exercise (negatory – unless you count the stair climb from the lower level), diet pills (are you kidding), vomiting (n, opps, yes), diarrhea (umm, yes). OK, so that’s not so good.

So, what to do? At this point, we are still waiting to hear from the clinic. My vote would be to get a bag of saline started and wait to see what develops. The clinic crew may want us to come in for more testing, but I suspect that all that will show is what we already know – C’s kidneys aren’t working so hot. As long as she isn’t running a fever or doing more close examinations of my toilet cleaning jobs, I would stay here and curl up with a good vintage of saline. But then, I am not in control.