When I walk in to get my blood drawn, a lab tech(who is not drawing my blood but looks concerned) comes over and asks me quite deliberately, "Michelle, are you feeling ok today?" I tell her I'm good, and she smiles halfheartedly and walks away. This is the first time my arm has really felt like a pin cushion. There's been a lot of blood drawn and IV's in my arms in my lifetime.
When my nurse calls me in, I stand up and get dizzy. She asks how long this has been happening and I let her know it's been happening every time I stand up since yesterday. I just thought it was my blood pressure dropping when I stood up. "This is concerning." She frowns. "Hold my arm and I'll take you to the exam room."
She asks more questions about eating and drinking and sleeping and activity. And then she looks at my weight. Ugh. I have lost 30 lbs since I left the hospital. To be fair, however, I gained 15 lbs of water weight post surgery. She is alarmed that I lost over 13 lbs in the last week. She looks over more stuff and tells me I am symptomatic for being dehydrated again. Before the doctor comes in, she warns me that I might end up staying at the hospital for a couple of bags of IV fluid. I am unimpressed but keep my mouth shut.
Dr Piper comes in, listens to the details, examines me. Yay! All my staples are taken out and my incision is healing beautifully. My medications can stay as is(except removing the pain med and anti-nausea meds that are no longer necessary). My creatinine(measures the level of toxins in the blood) is 1.5!! A healthy person with one kidney should be below 1.8. Yay! I am a healthy person with one kidney!
But I am supposed to have more energy than I have; I am supposed to be feeling better. "I didn't know I was feeling bad," I respond.
"So," he says. "You need to get hydrated." I brace myself, and then he explains his approach to get this done. First, I need to eat more, like all day long in small amounts; I am to be a grazer. Second, I should supplement my grazing with Boost or Ensure. (Did you know there's 260 calories in each bottle?) Third, drink more, easy enough. Fourth, start putting salt on everything!
He told me the extra salt would retain the water I drink in my system because right now my kidney is in super efficient mode and it's getting rid of all the water I do drink. He recommends Big Macs and fries, potato chips and pickles, tomato juice and canned soup...all of the things I am trained to stay away from. He suggests adding salt to all my food. My taste buds are going to be so confused….
But, I get to leave :)
We stopped at McDonalds on the way home. I wasn't sure what my stomach could take, so I played it safe and had a kids meal. Smiling as I started to eat, I tried to enjoy the liberating meal. It was good at first, but way too much for my tender stomach by the end.
So I'm trying to graze, tomorrow I'll go get some Boost, and work on adding salt and making frequent trips for fast food. It could be worse....
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