So I had my first appointment in two weeks today. Due to the massive snow storm my renal appointment was postponed (unfortunately) for another two weeks. Since my line was pulled a couple of weeks ago I had to be stuck for the first time in over 2 months - as always, Carlos (the BMT phlebotomist) did a great job and got me on the first stick! My lab results were just ok - creatinine is hovering around 2.6, today it was 2.68. Hemoglobin was 7.0 and other counts were fine. At my last appointment they drew an erythropoetin (epo for all those in the cycling world!) level and we found out today that it is extremely low. It is technically measuring within normal limits, but for a hemoglobin of 7 it should be much higher, stimulating my bone marrow to produce more red blood cells. Epo is a hormone made by the kidneys and since my kidneys are still working at a fraction of normal, they aren't producing enough epo to rebuild my red blood cells in my bone marrow. In numerical terms, my epo is 16.8 and normal is 3-24. But these "normal" levels are for people who have a normal amount of red blood cells/hemoglobin. The BMT doctor today told me that for a hemoglobin of 7, my epo should be closer to 500. Because epo is so closely linked to kidney function, it is a medication that has to be prescribed by a renal doctor in order to be covered by insurance. So now we've emailed my renal doctor to see if we can move up my appointment with her, otherwise it is very likely that I'll need another blood transfusion next week.
On to my GI tract...I am still having a fair amount of nausea unfortunately. I'm still waiting to hear about the results of my previous test, but it's looking like it's what the GI doctor initially thought - autonomic neuropathy which has caused decreased motility to my gut. After a couple of weeks of treatment for this, it seems to be slightly improving so I'm hoping that it continues to right itself over time.
A couple of days ago I spent about 15 minutes on the elliptical and the past two days I've done some snow shoveling, so I'm starting to get a little bit of energy back! Going pretty slow on the elliptical, my heart rate was 150 which is a bit of a joke. So hopefully with some epo on board I'll start getting back to normal and soon I'll be back on my bike enjoying some hard hills!
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| Almost exactly 1 year ago on top of Slieve Bloom Mountains in Ireland with Alistair |
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