Creatinine Blues

Monday’s can be hard. I dropped C off at the clinic and then headed for downtown Minneapolis to try to plead mercy on a parking ticket I got while we were semi-conscious at the clinic on Saturday. I parked OK, a legal spot, a four-hour pass on a meter with C’s handicap permit, but they tagged me for not showing a front license plate. A hundred and four smackers. And for what? I paid the license fee. I have a plate on the back. I guess its so meter maids don’t have to walk the extra distance to read the numbers.

Anyway, I went down to the hall of injustice to plead my case and something magical happened. I got a nice magistrate who said, “Look, you put a front plate on the car, take a picture, bring it in within one week, and we’ll drop the ticket.” “OK” says I, and I grab my stuff and skee-daddle. I was all pumped up and proud of myself when I walked into the clinic and found C and our favorite PA in very somber conversation.

C’s kidneys are failing. The marker we watch that tells of their condition took a huge jump up in the last day. The medical staff wanted her in the hospital immediately. We bargained them into letting us go home, say good-bye to the kids, pack a bag and return for admission.

This has been a real up and down day. The last place C wanted to be was back in the dreaded hospital. Her last visit in January left a real bad taste in her mouth. She refuses to go back the transplant ward because of the treatment she received at that time.

So, she is on another ward, and facing more tests. There are several opinions floating around about what is going on with her. Each physician we talk to has one. Hopefully, with more empirical data the differing theories will coalesce into something that appears more unified.

Tonight, she will have more blood drawn, will receive blood, will get another chest x-ray, will get a CT scan of her sinuses, will have samples taken of anything coming out of her, and will no doubt have to give her life’s medical history to at least three more people who don’t bother to look it up in her record (or maybe they do it to see if you were fibbing them the first fifteen times).

I am home with J. K is babysitting and will return late. What a deal. Send good thoughts C’s way as she battles through this latest onslaught.

P.