Wednesday, June 27, 2007

From Bad to Better

A man barely alive. We can(not) rebuild him. We (don't) have the technology. We can(not) make him better than he was.
- adapted by Me.


All right, troops: the diagnosis is in.


FINALLY.

The biopsy showed "significant rejection", which I suppose means that it had gone quite far. It also means that the treatment they chose to administer was correct. The steroids will continue for about six months or so, gradually tapering off.

Doc says it was not "vascular rejection" which apparently is the worst one. So, yay for the second worst! Woo hoo!

It will take a long time for them to determine whether the kidney will heal or scar. Healing is good, scarring is less good. I guess there will be an ultrasound at some future point to check this.

From now on, his creatinine baseline will be higher than it was before, since some irreparable damage has been done.


Finally, Doc says "we have no idea what caused it and we have no idea whether it will happen again."



And now, a few things to look at. This might be my concession to Random Wednesday... (Watch out - there are two scary pictures in this sequence.)


Gyrid front.
My butt. (Scary picture number one.) I bought some new capris but I'm worried they might be too girly for me. See? Flowers.
This one is for all those people who might be thinking I am exaggerating about the boldness of the deer around here. This one is less than two meters from my kids, and he is not even running. He was just browsing for some apples I had thrown in the compost. Bold as BRASS.
A West-Coast (read: huge) spider. (Scary picture number two.) I turned her over while recycling some more concrete debris into my garden. There you see her egg sac beside her. After taking this picture I ran inside to get my measuring tape and managed to lay it beside her without disturbing her. She was sitting squarely with her back legs at the 5", and her front legs at the 7". I lifted the camera to take the picture and BAM! she skittered off as fast as her legs could carry her (pretty darn fast when it's a 2" long spider).
My little friend. I tried to get a picture of him perched on the concrete edge of my new island bed (his favourite spot for worm-recon), but he had other ideas. I had to settle for a grass shot.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Three times tonight I was going to say I love your pants - and then we got off topic. Not too girly, very cool.
OMG - that deer!!!!

As for the rest. Yuck, and yeah, yay for second worst, if those are the options. Bleah.

You ARE amazing, by the way.

Anonymous said...

Several observations:

1. Damn! (re: biopsy results) and yes, yay for second-worst as opposed to first-worst. But don't we prefer bratwurst?

2. You can swing the flowered jeans because you will be wearing them with a dash of irony.

3. Damn, one would never know you'd had any children by looking at that butt. Most impressive.

4. Unbelievable gall of the deer.

5. Spider is indeed scary. (She says, having just whacked another 2-inch centipede after it crawled all over her cutting board and into the dish cupboard. There was screaming involved.)

6. I am glad you have the company of that robin. It seems like you could use it these days.

Shan said...

Huh? Amazing? I have searched my post for a reason but it simply escapes me. Not that I mind. By all means, say on.

Ah....yes, the butt. The sad reality is, I had to take that picture with an "angle", and a bit of a saucy stance, to make me look like I have more ass-ets than I really do. I am cursed with gluteus flateus.

No, wait. That sounded bad.

And my word verification is "yikers".

Indeed.

Sue H said...

Ugh, I'm afraid that spider wouldn't have survived if I'd found it, the heel of my boot would have left and imprint in the soil.
Love the photo of the deer near your girls.
No, the jeans aren't too girly, and you can always wear a long shirt to hide the flowers if you really feel they are too, too much.
I'm thinking of you each day, praying for VERY good news for Ian.

Anonymous said...

Because you show grace and humour and such you-ness .... again I say, amazing.

Jo said...

That's a lot of girliness on that behind ;) I remember those spiders well - when I lived in Victoria we used to find them in our apartment and they would freak the hell out of me!

I'm really sorry to hear the results of your husband's biopsy. What are the next steps in his treatment?

Ames said...

Re: gluteus flateus. I will be a donor for you. . .

Olga said...

Your a...your a..*gasp* A GIRL??!
How come that little info never came up before??? Heh heh.
Bummed ( no pun intended)over your hubby.