A kidney patient, and a cancer patient.

Here is Musical Daddy's post on our current situation.

We talked about this whole situation at length this morning, and yesterday evening. We've been rather fortunate with his treatments, overall, in that we've avoided many complications and side effects and extra hospitalizations up until now. The problem is that the radiation is hard on the kidney. The chemo is hard on the kidney. The kidney is compromised already, from the cancer. I think that we have been underestimating the "kidney" part of the kidney cancer ordeal. Until recently, his blood pressure has been good, which is a decent indicator of how the kidney is doing.

Was it a mistake to let them do the radiation? Probably not. It is another way to make sure that the cancer stays away. The toxicity of the chemo could result in him having less of it. Probably less medicine per treatment, same amount of treatments. Either way, I think I feel better about him having had an additional treatment type to keep cancer from coming back, as we know that his tumor did grow back on one chemo regimen.

One of the nurses said that she has seen this type of reaction to radiation/chemo and that sometimes it can take some time to resolve, but it does. The (less scary) nephrologist told us that she feels relatively optimistic about his current kidney function, and that the better his creatinine clearance test is, the less we'll have to do this test.

This is the test that requires the catheter. The less often THAT has to happen, the better.

But really, these past few weeks have reminded me that this is serious business. As in, we could easily lose him.

So I'm trying to enjoy him. He makes it easy; he is so sweet and precious.