Bunn’s Prairie

…leaping small buildings with a single bound. Ok, maybe not quite yet. It’s been a bit of a rough week, between the constant nausea and the g/j tube fiasco. If they’d only listened to me in the hospital, I think that episode might have been avoided. So, I’ve spent a lot of time being a useless blob on the couch. I have scraped myself off the “big blue comfy” a couple of times — as I FINALLY got my name legally changed to Rotering. Yea!! Made it to a Dr.’s appt. on Thurs., and also got out to the fundraiser that my friend Mandy was hosting. I’m HOPING to make it to Christa’s (my favorite sister) orchestra concert tomorrow at Gustavus. It would give me the opportunity to see my Grandma and Great Aunt Louise, as we would be able to pick them up on the way. Here’s hoping for a decent day tomorrow. NO MORE NAUSEA! Oooo…as a side note, a girl I met on Thursday said she was aware of this website that showed a knitted gastrointestinal tract - from top to bottom! It was amazing. If only I could knit! It would make a wonderful wall hanging, and quite the conversation piece! Hee! Here’s a shout out to my choir friends — sorry that Wed. was my emergency room night. I hope to be there soon! And a howdy to Dave and his wonderful community of friends in Illinois. You’ve been so good to me.

Kaley went back into the ER today becuase her J-G tube came up the back of her throat. She was convinced her J-G tube was misplaced 2 weeks ago before her last admission and had complained about it to multiple doctors who had assured her that nothing was misplaced. Once again, preventative health care is a foreign concept to those in the medical field.

When the tube was replaced today, they replaced it with a J-tube (omiting the gastric port). This is cool, because we never used the gastric access and allows us to have a smaller button, an easier button to use, and removes all confusion with medical professionals as to which tube Kaley’s meds go down.

Although a bit shell shocked, Kaley is back home and eating again.

Kaley was discharged from UMMC on Friday. She has been doing pretty well. Her creatinine levels have returned to normal with is obviously great news. We also have an explanation (not sure if it’s right or not) as to why Kaley has been running a fever (~101) off and on for a couple of weeks. It turns out there exists a virus called CMV that most people have been exposed to and carry antibodies for in our system. Kaley and her pancreas donor from 2004 were some of the rare people who had not been exposed to it. So when she received our donor’s kidney that had been exposed to this virus, her body needed to start making antibodies for this virus. The CMV is fairly harmless, and Kaley should be fine in the long term, it’s just going to take her some time to fight it off since she’s immuno-suppressed.

It looks like it was Kaley’s prograf level was causing her createnine increase. They’ve got that trending back toward normal now. Last night she was running a fever off and on, so they want to figure out what’s going on with that before they discharge her.

It turns out that Kaley’s Prograf (one of her anti-rejection drugs) levels were high and a side effect of this is reduced kidney function. So the docs are holding this med until her prograf levels return to normal, and continuing to hydrate her, and are hoping that one of those 2 things will return her kideny function to normal levels. If those things don’t work, then we will do a biopsy to rule out rejection. It sounds like when prograf level get too high, this is a pretty common problem. We’ll find out by Monday or Tuesday of next week.