It's all come crashing down......

Just when everything seems to be tracking along nicely, some bad news strikes and I am plunged back into the world of hospitals and medical procedures once again.  All my fellow CIDPers and HSCTers are probably waiting for me to talk about that horrible "R" word (relapse), but no.  Fortunately not.  Everything is going swimmingly in that respect.  I am referring to a kidney stone that has been quietly growing.

It is not as bad as it sounds.  I picked up the stone in a routine X-ray I had last week and it is not that big yet.  It is only about 8mm but I still booked into see the urologist as sooner or later something has got to be done about it.  On the positive side, only one kidney is affected, it has been 18 months since my last surgical intervention and I have no residual pain.  Any of my fellow cystinuric readers will be quite jealous.

I wasn't surprised I had a kidney stone.  Every cystinuric patient expects them on a regular basis.  I was actually surprised it wasn't bigger.  When I had my Stem Cell Transplant I effectively dropped my fluid intake to less than 500ml/day and most of my medications I wasn't taking as I felt so nauseous.  My old nephrologist would have been furious as he didn't care about any of my other conditions as long as I got no stones.

So where to from here?  I had a good frank discussion with my urologist (which was a little boring as it was almost the same as last time I saw him) about when to intervene surgically.  We agreed that the ideal time was when the stone was at a size small enough to be treated with one surgery but not large enough to warrant two interventions.  Basically put, the fewer number of surgeries over a lifetime, the better.

However, we both agreed that that time was about now, but there was no immediate hurry.  So we slotted a date into the diary that suited me best and away we go.  FYI that date is the 18th of April.  Until then, it's just focusing on nerve and muscle regeneration and getting my fitness to the level I want it to be at.  Until next time, stay well:)