Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Kidney disease stable

Doug saw Dr F, the nephrologist, today. The lab work shows he is stable - nothing got worse. In fact there has been a slight drop in the protein in urine. His ankle swelling is a bit worse on the left side but not severe. So that is a good report.

We really like Dr. F. Not only is she a well respected kidney doc but she refuses to play the corporate game of scheduling a patient every 15 minutes. She is so well established in the community that she can get away with being a bit of a maverick. For new consults she schedules 90 minutes. That was pretty standard when I started out in the medical world but sadly is rare now. And she is down to earth. Her hobby is taking care of her rescued burros!

Dr. F says the new chemo regime that Dr. M discussed at the last oncology visit will not hurt the kidneys and would probably be a good thing. We'll find our more about that next month.

We  have a new addition to the family - two dogs! We had been without dogs for four years, after many years of multiple dogs and dog activities. We now have two Havanese, male and female, from Havanese rescue. Their owner was unable to keep them due to severe illness, so we adopted them. Pippa and Nikko are three years old, happy little dogs, quiet (unless someone comes to the door), playful, and best of all, no house training issues!

I still can't get a photo from my iMac to this blog. Phooey.

“If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it” — Mary Engelbreit