Renal dietitian visit – levels good, yay

More hospital stuff today. My three monthly appointment with my excellent nephrologist Dr Medcalfe, and a bonus appointment with my renal dietitian. Some sort of scheduling SNAFU meant that I couldn’t see my nephrologist, but I’m in email contact with him anyway and most of the stuff I needed to talk about I was able to talk about with the dietitian. I’ve emailed him about the rest.

The three main variables that govern my life are:

• my eGFR, often just called GFR, which is my estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate. This was at 14 on my last two visits (well – 14, then 15 – but basically static)
• my potassium level – too high and my heart goes bonkers
• my phosphorus level – too high and my PTH levels increase and my bones dissolve. Perhaps not as spectacularly as that sounds, but I’m not keen to find out.

Pleasingly, my eGFR was still 14, which may mean that my transplant date will shift away from the summer towards autumn/winter – the team will no doubt have a think about it. No point doing it too early.

Doubly pleasingly, my potassium was back in the normal range – 4.7.  The last time it was measured it was at 5.6, and so I panicked and tried to eat in a lot more of a regimented way to see if I could get it down.  Success! No heart attacks for me quite yet, thanks.

Triply pleasingly, my phosphorus was still nicely in the normal range too – 1.01. This is even though I relaxed my phosphorus regime a little, because I’d managed to get it down to within normal range last time, by being really hardcore about it (I went effectively vegan) – but now I am allowing myself a couple of milky teas or coffees a day, and a bit of cheese every couple of days. Even with that, I’m safe for now it seems, so I can carry on being fairly relaxed about that.

So – all in all, a good day.  I’ll update you when I hear back about their best guesses re: transplantaion.