Time for another installment of this Wednesday/Sunday night series!
Picking up from last time –
I asked him, “What can I do? Tell me what to change. What should I eat or not eat? How should I work out, or change my habits?”
And he said, “There’s nothing you can do.”
[*sound of my heart cracking down the middle*]
He told me this was just the way my kidneys function (improperly), and that there was nothing I could change. He told me I had a lot of healthy habits that were great. And all I can really do is watch and see if the problem gets any worse.
I said in the last post that this was the most heartbreaking part to me. I hate it when there are things you can’t change! I know those things exist in life. But they do not make me happy. I was sort of taken back to the way I felt during my heart issues. I know it’s obviously not the same thing, but I remember the worst part of that was being powerless.
I hadn’t thought deeply about my heart issues in a long time. It was amazing to me how in an instant I could be transported back to this all too familiar feeling that I hadn’t felt in a long while.
Dr. R said at some point, we may be able to do some tests to see if we could get to a root cause. He said he does want to figure out what’s going on – as, it is odd for someone my age, without any risk factors, to have high protein in her urine (since that’s one of the early signs of kidney disease). But at this point, it’s just nothing to be too terribly worried about, or to take immediate action on.
When he told me we’d have to close the door on kidney donation, I held back tears on the phone. I was just so sure, oh so sure it was going to work out. I really believed it would. And to hear it wasn’t, and that there was nothing I could change… I was in disbelief.
It hurt. It hurt so much.
So, we got off the phone (and those tears flowed immediately!). And this is where I’ll pick up next time.