December 21, 2010

Kidneys

As I posted before, Rachel went in to have her kidney follow up last Thursday. It wasn't the visit we hoped for. When Rachel was born, or shortly after, they determined that she had one kidney larger than the other. All of our past visits were to make sure that the kidneys were evening out and returning to "normal." The last visit we had, 6 months ago, we were told there was progress and that her blood work was great. Which lead me to believe that this current follow up would be the last one. Unfortunately, the kidney doc showed us her ultrasound. Her left kidney was doing pretty good. It was growing like she was growing and only had a little big of "light" areas. Light areas mean that there is dense tissue and that keeps the kidney from growing and performing like it should. The right kidney, however, seemed to have not grown at all since 6 months ago and is now the smaller kidney. It was also pretty light which indicated a lot of dense tissue. Not good for a kidney. The doctor explained to us that we just need to keep an eye on them and to watch out for any signs that the kidneys aren't functioning the way they should. He said it's pretty possible that the left kidney will grow larger than normal to make up for the less functioning right kidney.

He also had some blood work done again. We finally got the call about that on Monday. He wants us to get another work up in 2 months. I am not sure why. Even thought he said her blood work concerning her kidneys was fine, he must have saw something that made him worry about something else even though he told me not to get worked up. Her hemoglobin, hematocrit and mean cell volume were higher than they should be. Does anyone have any ideas of what this could indicate? Her lymphocytes were low also but he really didn't seem bothered by that. I didn't think to ask him what his thoughts were at the time he was talking to me. I don't know why. I called him back today and left a message. Hopefully I will hear back from him tomorrow. I hope that this doesn't turn out to be anything big. I just want our girl to be healthy.

3 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear it wasn't the visit you'd hoped for. We've been going through some things with Jack lately too (will talk to you later about them). Just know that you are in our thoughts. Elevated H&H could mean a few things but it could also just mean a little dehydration, by the way.

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  2. Praying for Rachel! What a strong beautiful little girl...She has overcame so much already I am sure that little kidney will catch up soon!

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  3. How frustrating for you! It's so hard to put all this blind faith in our doctors! (at least for me, but really, I don't have an MD, so what else can I do?)
    Rachel's doing great right now, I'll send positive vibes your way!!

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