Donating (a bit of) my body to science – day 2
Some people reading this may know I’m married to Alison Moore, who wrote this book – it was inspired by a circular walking holiday we took in the Rhineland one year. Walking 10-15 miles a day for a week, by the end of it I could barely walk. My legs were like jelly – she could run up the stairs of our hotels but I literally had to crawl. I figured she was just fitter than me – but I realised today, after talking to the doctors yesterday, that it’s very likely this microtear repair problem with kidney failure is to blame. My muscles were just physically knackered at a fine level, and needed longer to repair themselves.
This may well have repercussions on the ride – my plan is to just take it easy and try to avoid damaging the muscles by pushing myself too hard – but it may be that I need to schedule an emergency rest day in there if things get bad. Still – we are driving back now so that should be doable!
Anyway – yesterday I had a biopsy to help some research into muscle wasting in kidney patients. I felt like I had a bit of a dead leg for most of the day – it didn’t stop me sleeping at all, and has at no point been actually painful. Gradually today the dead leg feeling has ebbed away, and about half an hour ago I had a bath. I took the dressing off and went into the bath with the steri strips still on – and the bath gave me no pain whatsoever. I couldn’t tell there was a wound.
Coming out of the bath, I looked at the site – it really is hilariously small. I called my wife to look at it and she was clearly girding herself for something grim, and then laughed when she saw how nothingy it was. So – here it is, with a 10p for scale:
So – as you can see – nothing to worry about! The dead leg feeling seems to be completely gone too.
As I said in the previous post, if you feel you are awesome enough to do this, get in touch with them. They are absolutely wonderful people and very interesting to talk to. The study is extremely relevant to many people’s lives, and offers a real chance to be part of something wholly good.
If you don’t fancy having bits of you cut out, why not sponsor me instead – the money I raise goes to things like this – and directly helps fund the labs the research takes place in.
Explore CKD
The Leicester Kidney Exercise Team
The University of Leicester Academic Unit
Leicester General Hospital
Leicester LE5 4PW
Telephone: 0116 258 4346
email: kidney.exercise@uhl-tr.nhs.uk