CT Scans and other tests
If you have been reading my substack and before that my blog, you probably already know that I am a dialysis patient. I’ve been doing home peritoneal dialysis just shy of three years. It will be three years exactly in April.
If you meet me, you would never know that my kidneys are compromised. I don’t look fragile. Most people I’ve met who are doing normal hemodialysis begin to look extremely thin and fragile after a few years. You don’t just go on dialysis and then get a kidney right away. At least where I am living it can take over five years to get a working kidney.
So we deal with the surprises.
One of my surprises was that the UMC hospital called to schedule a chest CT scan and blood tests. I had no idea that the kidney transplant coordinator had put in the tests for me. When I am dealing with doctors, they usually let me know what they are doing and why they are doing it before ordering tests.
I did schedule, and then immediately sent an email to the transplant coordinator to find out why they need a CT scan. I am wary of radiation due to the fact that my thyroid cancer was the type that is caused by nuclear radiation. The techs keep telling me that medical radiation is different. Even so this is the second CT scan I’ve had in a year. It seems a lot.
So the reason for the CT scan was that the doctor wanted to make sure there wasn’t any scarring in my lungs from my autoimmune disease, Granulomatosis with Polyangitiis (used to be called Wegener’s Granulomatosis.” This is a concern because what caused my kidney failure was crescent scars (granulomatosis) in both of my kidneys.
Being a good kidney patient, I checked into the hospital on Monday and went from department to department to get the tests done. Normally I end up waiting up to 30 minutes for each test, but I was lucky. The techs were ready for me within minutes.
When I walked into the radiology room with the CT scanning machine, I was told that I didn’t need to undress. I had to lie on this thin plank with my hands above my head and with my elbows close so that when I was scanned that I wouldn’t hit the inside of the machine. I closed my eyes for most of it. When they said breath in, I did and when they said breath out, I did that too. One breath I had to hold was so long that I almost didn’t make it.
The scan seemed like an eternity, but it was only ten minutes.
It was just another test I needed to do to get on the transplant list. For the last three months I have done so many procedures and seen so many doctors that I record everything into a notebook. I can’t remember it all.
The next day my results were in my health portal. It was an interesting read although the lab notes disappeared the next day with only a summary. Anyone who knows me will know that it bothered me that they didn’t leave the lab notes. When I had time I would have deciphered the language to see if the summary matched the notes.
I did notice that in the lab notes, there was a mention of two lobes with problems, but in the summary it only talked about one lobe. It might explain why when I dance too long or too hard that I start to gasp. Being asthmatic or even pre-asthmatic is not on my dance card hopefully.
So if the doctor is fine with the results, I may be looking at a kidney transplant in the near future. Who knows because I don’t.
Every day is an adventure in the life of dialysis woman.