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vaccinenumber9-blog · 8 years ago

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My kidney and how it failed me

It was back in the summer last year I was having a happy long run along the Blackwater Valley Path. I was almost an hour in when I had the most horrific pain in my stomach. ‘Bleughhh’ I thought. Stopped. And threw up into the stream. I felt awful. I looked at my phone. I was 5 miles in but 3 from home. I knew I couldn’t run 3 miles feeling like I did. Sweat prickled my forehead and I began to shake. I sat down. The path was narrow. One side bordered by the stream, the other a high fence, the A323 the other side. I would have to carry on and at least get to my gym which I calculated was just a mile away. I could get a drink, go to the loo and call Pete for a lift. A mile equates to just 10 minutes of running. I could do it.

And I did.

I got the gym and was shaking terribly. I went to the loo and packing no punches here I weed pure blood. 'Shit’ I thought. I wasn’t surprised. It had happened once before and that time I was referred to a urologist Mr Barber. I had a whole load of tests which yielded nothing and was told in all likelihood I had foot strike haemolysis. This is when you burst so many red blood cells in the soles of your feet running you wee blood. It’s common after long runs. As long as it was the only incident and it returned to normal on the next wee I was told not to worry.

But it happened after every run. Yet by bed time all was ok. I was puzzled. I tried not running and it stopped. As soon as I ran a mile it was back. A friend told me to get some of the dip sticks we used as VNs to see if there was still microscopic blood when it looked clear. There wasn’t. It was literally only the wee after my run.

So I let it ride. Such a mistake. Crow had gone missing and I was more worried about him. I was spending a lot of time looking for him.

Over the next 6 weeks my running took a nose dive. I was slow, I was struggling by mile 5. I was sticking to one route I felt I could manage. But as long as I was doing my daily 10k I convinced myself I was ok. Pete joined me on one and remarked how quiet I was.

'I’m concentrating on getting half way so I can stop. I’m really struggling Pete’

'What’s making you stop?’ He asked

'I don’t know. It’s like utter exhaustion. Like someone is pulling me backwards’

I was getting back ache too, high up on my left hand side. I kept slapping on heat patches before I ran. I was getting dreadful stomach ache. 'Irritable bowel’ I told myself. One time I ran to the pharmacy and stuffed a load of semeticone in my mouth and carried on running.

I turned a blind eye to the fact I kept throwing up and felt sick. That I was falling asleep at 5pm for hours, that I kept waking up in the night confused and wandering about. During those episodes my whole body felt weird. Like my muscles were crawling.

I got worried as soon I was weeing blood continuously. I was exhausted. I went to my gp in the end and she reassured me nothing was found on all my scans but she’d refer me back to Barber. She put me on antibiotics, she said I had an infection. Nitrofuratoin. It was a disaster. By day 2 I had an allergic reaction. I’m already allergic to penicillin so I knew straight away. I stopped taking them and waited for my appointment. One evening Pete took me to an ooh GP. He read Barbers report, said nothing was wrong. I specifically asked him if my kidneys were ok. I showed him a pot of my wee. I said to him I was a VN, if a dog was pissing like that I’d put it on a drip. He laughed.

Little did I know but in 3 weeks I would be back in that room in kidney failure.

I went home. Over the next week protein showed up in my wee as well as blood, ketones, glucose, white blood cells. 'My kidneys are failing’ I said matter of fact to my husband. I still ran that day.

I went to see Barber. 'Ah! It’ll be your kidney stone!’ He said

'My what?’

'I’m sure I told you’

'You didnt’ I said, mixed emotions, relief it neatly explained everything and anger that had I known I would have arranged to see him weeks previously.

'It’s tiny’ he said. 'Just 2mm’ surprised you didn’t wee it out. 'We’ll scan you tomorrow’

Scan me he did. The next day I saw a friend, came home and felt a bit off. I started throwing up uncontrollably. The pain in my back was worse than labour pain. I became delirious. I thought Atticus was talking to me. He had, apparently, lost his hat in the garden. Had I seen it? It was a tartan golfing hat with a bobble on the top. Evie rubbed my back. Pete was worried sick. I said I was fine. I got it together and emailed Barber. A few hours later his secretary called. He had looked at my scan and I needed to go in immediately.

With that I kind of then realised it was serious and I had a tiny panic.

I went into his office and jokingly said 'you aren’t giving me bad news are you?’

He said he was. He said my stone was 12mm blocking my whole kidney, which was ulcerated and had failed. He needed to operate that night to put a stent in to save it. I giggled and said thank god I thought I was dying.

He got stern at that point and told me to stop it and listen up. He needed to ask a colleague how on Earth they were going to get it out. That if I liked it or not this was going to interrupt my life for a while.

'It can’t’ I said. I have to walk my dogs on Monday. I’m self employed.

He told me to go home back my bags and Jeanette his secretary would call me.

I tiptoed out. Thinking 'tits and arse’.

I was to go in the next morning at 8. I got up at 6 and ran 6 miles to prove I was just fine. My sister took me in.

So I have the luxury of private healthcare and I was shown to my room. I felt just fine. My sister and I giggling over some magazines and in walks Barber.

He looks at us puzzled for a minute as we say in unison 'we’re sister’

'You don’t say!’

'She’s the older sensible one’ I say

'Yes I don’t run’ my sister says.

We both giggle

He drew a big arrow on my left thigh explaining he wanted to get the right kidney. Which was the left one. As he departs my sister giggles 'for fuck sake Kate you could have warned me he was that gorgeous’

'I know it’s nothing short of disastrous really’

It wasn’t long before I get taken to theatre. And of course one minute I’m telling the anaesthetist where all my piercings are and the next I’m waking up pulling my own et tube out. Yick.

I get taken back to my sister. They give me a sandwich. I can’t leave til I’ve eaten it only the local anaesthetic they use in your throat means I can’t actually swallow. I tear it up a bit, move it around and declare I want to go home. Pete’s arrived with Evie, I know I feel awful but I’m not letting anyone know. I walk out. Trying to walk desperately. The pain in my kidney is like I have a knitting needle in my back. I’m going to be sick by the time I’m at the parking meter. I don’t want Evie to know. I focus on getting into the car, the front door, to my box of painkillers. I find codeine, paracetamol and ibuprofen I take them all and fight back the tears.

The next day I’m a mess. The pain is like labour pain, coming in waves and I can’t stop crying. I’m so confused. By 6pm Pete gets me to an emergency doctor. He propels me into the waiting room. I slide off the chair onto the floor. The receptionist helps pick me up, she’s lovely and I get laid down on a bed and all manner of pain killers injected. My body is rejecting the stent. The pain is over whelming. They keep me there a few hours and as the morphine kicks in I feel better. I need a cup of tea so they suggest I try going to the cafe. If I’m ok I can go home with pain relief.

I am absolutely off my trolley by now but pain free. Pete gets me tea and some biscuits. I find some funny books in the second hand book stall in the reception of the hospital.

I can do this’ I muse.

But I can’t. I get home. My friend Meg tells me I’m just following in the footsteps of my ancestor Samuel Pepys. I manage a giggle and read up all about it. It makes grim reading. He had his stone removed without anaesthesia. He was so pleased every year he threw it a party on Its removal anniversary, March 26th. My nephews birthday.

I feel sick reading it. They killed him in the end. His left kidney ulcerated and the stones adhered. A grim way to go.

At 6am I creep into the garden, hot and shaking I sit on the railway sleepers and silently cry. I can’t endure the week I need my kidney to drain and heal. My whole body feels in shock. I remember sitting there with Bean wrapped in an old cardigan holding him the day he died. At that thought I start crying and I can’t stop. I literally can’t control it. I go inside and tell Pete something is really wrong.

So he takes me to A&E. it’s from this point I can’t remember much. Just episodes of vomiting and sleeping. They sedated me and admitted me. I slept and vomited for a week. I forgot I had children. I had lucid moments. Anger at a nurse who was exasperated I wasn’t weeing and I kept telling her that was the problem I had kidney failure. Stupid woman. It was unfair of me. I recall Andy messaging me. He was in the Sun. Page 20 and not naked. Pete brought up a copy, it was all about how great he had done on his experimental chemo drug, he was cancer free. I remember smiling and then vomiting missing his picture by inches. I messaged him back saying I’d thrown up all over him. It was a comfort, if anyone knows how to survive a hospital situation it’s him and this was nothing compared to that.

I remember a guacamole sandwich that looked like poo. An older lady patient rubbing my back one night as I threw up hour after hour. My mouth was ulcerated by now and I was exhausted.

All I wanted at this point was for them to remove my kidney. I begged and pleaded. They were trying to get hold of Mr Bott who would eventually operate but he wasn’t about. I was kept on morphine, diclofenac, paracetamol, cyclazine, a host of other anti sickness stuff and a constant drip.

Eventually Pete emailed Mr Bott in desperation. The nurses were saying I needed to go home but I could barely cope on morphine so I was just stuck there.

Then on Friday evening a nurse handed me a phone and said 'it’s for you, it’s your consultant’

'How are you feeling!’ He bellowed down the line

'Like death. Please can you remove my kidney. I want to sell it on eBay’ I whisper

'I’m transferring you to my private suite, I’ll operate first thing’ he said.

I let out a strangled sob. Within minutes a porter arrived and wheeled me off. The nurse in the private wing was glorious. She cuddled me, ran me a hot bath, made me something to eat. Injected me with a whole load of stuff that felt great. I ate for the first time in a week. She put on the TV. She made me feel human.

The next day I had my op. It took ages. I didn’t recover well. They had trouble waking me up. I vaguely recall them trying and desperately wanting to sleep. I was so weak and exhausted it was hardly a surprise. I had been injected with heparin all week as well as the worry was that going from running 6 miles daily to this I’d get a deep vein thrombosis. My stomach was a mess of bruises. My piercings had all got infected, my mouth was so ulcerated. I felt like shit.

Mr Bott called Pete to tell him he had got it all out but he had to put in another stent as my kidney was a mess.

But the stone was out.

I decided to be brave and went for the option of stent removal without anaesthesia. I was worried I wouldn’t wake up at all third time round. He took it out the next day but warned me to stay a while as I’d get colic about 2 hours later. I did. I needed more morphine. Kidney colic isn’t nice.

Pete took me home after I had a bath. I made myself look as normal as I could. I looked scrawny and I felt awful. I put my boots on and walked out. They gave me a bag full of pain killers and a number to call in an emergency. Pete got me home. I curled up on the sofa and slept. 2 hours later I heard the gate go. I got up and opened the front door. Seth and Evie hurtled into my arms. They had been at my sisters and Pete had collected them and a Christmas tree. We spent that afternoon decorating it. Seth spent that day cuddling me.

Fast track a month later and I’m back having more scans (no more stones) and I’m told it was made of Uric Acid. I am Botts first ever case of a vegetarian with a stone made of animal protein. He suspects it’s a metabolic problem. Do I have gout? I tell him about my child hood arthritis how I still get flare ups in my big toe joints but I know how to deal with it. I just cut the sides of my running shoes open and run on the outside edges of my feet. He looks at me long and hard and silently.

I start talking 'my dad has gout, and he had a kidney stone’ I ramble. 'It’s all his fault!’

I tell him how my arthritis kind of went when I became a vegetarian. That my mum treated it gently, no steroids, no ops, lots of rest and heat. I did ok.

He tells me I need to drink more water, to modify my diet. Cut out as much purine as I can. If it’s metabolic he’ll put me on allopurinol.

As I scuttle out his room I text my dad and ask him if he’s still on meds for his gout and what is it called??

'Allopurinol’ he says.

Bloody Bunkers. It figures. His brother and sister had the same problems, trace it back through his mum and you land at Mr Pepys.

So here I am still having tests done but confidently knowing my dads ok and I will be too.

'It’s funny’ my mum says 'your dad was 45 too when he had all his problems with his stones and gout’

You can’t defy your genetic path it would seem. These things are written in, but I’m in good company at least. As my dad slops in his slippers (drives my mum mad) towards 80 he’s in fine fettle. He moans about his feet as much as I do, but he still has all his teeth, selective hearing and all his beautiful snow white hair.

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