Not a good day .................

MrGee is a very positive guy. He always has been. If he is faced with a challenge, he will take on the issue with an upbeat attitude always expecting the outcome to be a good one.
With that said, I can see that the dialysis is getting him down already. He said a couple of days ago that he feels slightly depressed after he has his 4 hour dialysis session. This morning he said he was feeling totally flat , he even cancelled going to one of our friends birthday parties this evening!! He says he just doesn't want to have to talk about his kidney. I'm feeling so sad for him. I asked what I could do to help him feel better ...... he sad that there was nothing I could really do ...... mmmmmm

Our first visit......

Only after MrGee's second week of dialysis was he comfortable with us coming into the dialysis room to have a look-see.......

MrGee is attached to the blue machine on the right. The cylindrical tube in the middle of the photo acts as his kidney, filtering out all the junk from the blood. He connects to this machine every third day for a 4 hour session.

After his fistula procedure.

Miss Tanzi was scared of the goodies attached to her Daddy, and for the first few minutes she wouldn't touch him. Eventually she hopped on the bed and was back to her normal bubbly self!
The procedure went well and the fistula is looking good. For the first four days after surgery he was in alot of pain(mainly from the lumen dialysis port that was put in his neck) but now he is feeling alot better .... although he still can't lift his right arm above his head(it's too painful).

Say no to toxins!

As I write this, Boyd is having his second haemodialisis. After his first one he sms'd me " I feel great, it feels like I have rocket fuel in my blood!" He also commented "I am even thinking clearer."

Picture of good health..............

This pic was taken 3 weeks ago.......................................


Today Boyd's vascular surgeon told him that he looked too healthy to have kidney failure! I agree.... this 41 year old (who is starting dialysis tomorrow morn) looks in blooming good shape!!!! hehe ........ I believe it's his good mental state, people's ardent prayers and God's grace that are sustaining him. Thank you Jesus.

Boyd had the fistula procedure done in his wrist today.Because his creatinine levels have sky rocketed and the fistula will only be ready for use in 6-8 weeks, they had to do an emergency neck catheter so that he can start dialysis tomorrow. Once the fistula is mature(6-8 weeks), they will dialysise through the veins/artuaries in his arm twice a week.

keep ya posted ......

Prep. for dialysis......

As I write this, Boyd will be coming out of theater. He went in to have a fistula created in his wrist so that he can start dialysis as soon as possible.

Gout ....?

Ten days ago Boyd started getting a pain in his left foot.
(Backtracking........)
This foot has had two operations on it. Apparently when he was a young teenager he dropped a brick on it and broke one of his foot bones. Then in his late teens, he had to have an operation on this foot because he had developed osteomylitis in the broken bone. I also remember him getting the streptococcus virus in this same foot 6 years ago.
(Back to the future..........)
The pain got so bad that he drove himself to the hospital at midnight! He came back with a diagnosis of GOUT and a couple of pills. Still the pain persisted, and Boyd was not convinced that it was gout.... he was sure it was a reoccurance of osteomylitis.The next morning our local GP administered a strong anti-inflammatory jab and diagnosed gout. Even though Boyd is meant to stay away from anything anti-inflammatory, he was in such agony that they gave it to him anyway.
Two days later he was at the emergency room for another jab! They did blood tests, and discovered his uric acid levels in his blood were sky high. Yip, another symptom of bad kidney function.
He has had to incorporate more alkaline foods into his diet so that his system becomes less acidic.
Since he has started doing this the pain has started to lessen.