The Little Kidney That Could

Setting aside the conversation with the Thoracic Surgeon where he told me that the only option that I had for the blockages in my vessels was Open Heart Surgery, the scariest exchange that I had with any of my caregivers this summer was when the cardiac nurse practitioner told me, “oh we’re going to ding that new kidney… heart surgery is tough on the kidneys.” Fresh off transplant surgery, nobody wants to hear about anything that would have a remote chance of damaging the kidneys, much less such a direct assessment.

Since transplant surgery back in June we have gone to great lengths through diet, exercise, medicine, rest, and stress management to allow for the best possible integration of the new kidney into my body and systems, and as such, both we and the transplant doctors have been quite pleased with the results. You may remember from previous posts that “normal” kidney function is measured on a scale of about .8 – 1.2. This number is a reflection of the amount of waste that is present in one’s body at a given time. Pre transplant, my numbers were approaching 6, and following transplant, my baseline had settled in with consistent readings of about 1.6-1.8. These are good readings, and as the kidney grows and my healing progresses, we expect these numbers to get even better.

Hydration plays a big role in these functional numbers as the more fluids you take in, the more opportunity your kidney(s) have to clear waste. Following heart surgery protocols for care call for restricting fluid intake so as to reduce stress on the heart. Transplant doctors want patients to take in 5-6 liters of fluid daily, and cardiac surgeons want patients to limit fluid intake to about 1.5 liters per day. As I drink about 5-6 liters per day anyway, after transplant, I had been drinking about 7-8 liters a day, and the restrictions following the heart surgery were difficult to swallow (where did that pun come from??!) I experienced the expected problems from the restrictions, dry mouth, sore muscles, dizziness, etc, but the new kidney was the one who really struggled. In the weeks immediately following the bypass surgery, function measurements from my labwork skyrocketed to 2.2 which was quite unsettling.

As time passed, the fluid restrictions were eased, and I was able to drink the water I was accustomed to, my Rockstar kidney eased back down into normal (for me) ranges with numbers back in the 1.6-1.7 range. As it turned out, yes, the new kidney got “dinged,” but took the licking and kept on ticking with seemingly no long term ill effects.

Following my kidney checkup last week, the post transplant doctor was a little surprised at how well I had responded following surgery, and he wrote orders to reduce some of the medicines that I am taking with the removal of two more in about two weeks. We couldn’t be happier with the performance of the transplanted kidney, and the excellent health and altruism of my donor!