My Trip to the Nephor...Nephra....I Go See a Kidney Doctor.

I left the general practice doctor with Lukas in tow and an appointment card in my hand telling me where and when I needed to go see a kidney specialist. I later learned that he is technically called a nephrologist. At this moment, all I knew was to call him a kidney doctor. The words "acute kidney failure" kept ringing in my ears. Even as Lukas carried on in his usual, effervescent, three-year-old way, the only thought I had was, "I'm not going to see you grow up. I'm going to die." Since the day Lukas had been born, my wife had always ribbed me that I'd be 50 by the time he graduated high school. I always laughed it off, telling her I'd still be the coolest dad around. Now, i tried to wrap my mind around the concept that I might not be there to see him graduate from high school. That I might not even be there to see him turn four.

Since this period of my life, I have seen many people close to me go through way worse health problems. In no way do I mean to make you believe that what I went through compared in any way to what they went through. This ends up being pretty mild in the world of health concerns (Spoiler alert!), but at the time, I was pretty concerned and feeling very mortal.

I got to the car and pulled out my cell phone. The first call, obviously, was Jodie. I told her what was going on. i will admit, that I was impressed by my wife that day. She is one to usually blow off any "health concerns" I have, telling me to suck it up and get over it (When I dislocated two fingers, her response upon seeing them was "Oh, whatever" -- not making that up). This day, though, there was genuine concern in her voice. This scared me even more. She said she'd check on the nephrologist and see what she could find out about him. The she said something I never thought I'd hear from her; she told me she was taking the rest of the day off to go with me. We agreed on a time she'd get off and meet me.

The next call I had to make was to my mom. In addition to everything else, I had already made plans to meet my sister in McPherson and drop off Lukas so he could go to Kansas City and spend New Years with Grandy, Grammy, and his cousins. I explained the situation to her, and I'm pretty sure she freaked out a little on her end. She would have freaked out more, but I'm pretty sure I remember leaving out a lot of the details, specifically the phrase "acute kidney failure." After I assured her that I would be fine, and that she didn't need to come immediately to Wichita, I called my sister and we made plans to meet in Hesston. It was good, because I was feeling very guilty dragging Lukas around, and I had no idea how much longer all this would take.

I dropped Lukas off and then turned around to head back to Wichita to meet my wife. By this time it was around 2:00 PM and neither of us had eaten lunch. I wasn't particularly hungry. We went to the Artichoke, since it was close to the kidney doctor. Those of you who live in Wichita know that the Artichoke has some of the best sandwiches around. Mine tasted a bit like cardboard that day. I had no interest in it and I ended up taking half of it home. My wife talked to me a little bit about things, but I still couldn't get over the words "acute kidney failure."

We went to the nephrologist. I sat in the waiting room and had to fill out a sheet about my symptoms. I still have to fill this same sheet out now when I go to see him. One of the questions it asks if you've had any significant life changes since your last visit. Since I only go once a year now, I always get to mark this box. My significant life changes always end up being our topic of conversation. It seemed like forever before a nurse came and got me and took me back, got my vitals and told me to wait for the doctor.

To protect my nephrologist, I will refer to him as Dr. Harvard, because he is really smart -- which is one of the things I like about him. I don't think he went to Harvard, but I bet he could have. The first thing I noticed about him was his voice. His voice was very calm and reassuring. He reminded me a lot of the late Carl Sagan as he began to explain what he was seeing in the tests. I won't go into too much detail, but ill give you a few of the specifics. My body was leaking protein all over. The protein in my urine was around 250. Average is 20-25. My blood creatinine level was 3.5. Anything oer 1.5 is considered high. All this, Dr. Harvard told me, led him to believe that I was having major kidney malfunction. The problem, he continued to explain, was that these symptoms could be any of a range of kidney disorders, some minor, some major. We would just have to run more tests to figure out exactly what the deal was. We did get some good news from Dr. Harvard at this appointment -- for the time being, it didn't look like I would need to start dialysis. At least it was a positive.

Next time: Eye, Doctor.