Maria in the hospital

Quick backstory - Maria's transplanted kidney from Jan of 2003 failed and she had to start dialysis by Aug of 2015. She hasn't done well on hemodialysis and we knew that from 2001 when she was on it a year. She's been slowly not doing well over the course of this past year.

Then about 2 months ago she started to really not feel well. She started some symptoms that have been plaguing her and not getting better since. Last month she went to her primary care physician (PCP) and he ordered a bunch of tests. Nothing came back pointing to anything definitive.

In the last 10 days she has spiraled downhill. She's lost about 18 lbs, has started falling, is very weak, can't hardly eat anything, when she tries to eat it comes out both ends almost immediately, isn't sleeping well but just wants to be in bed.

Her dialysis people wanted her to leave dialysis on Friday night and go straight to the ER and be evaluated but we had a wedding to go to and went out of town briefly for that. So immediately upon our return, we went to the ER on Sunday. They ran a lot of the same tests her PCP had done just weeks earlier, and they also came back "fine". We were shocked they sent her home. The ER doc said, "Without finding anything wrong, what do you want us to do for her?"

So we arranged to see her PCP who was out of town until today. They squeezed Maria on to his already packed schedule. He had been up since 5 AM and had already reviewed everything in her chart including the ER stuff. He spent about 3 minutes in the room and said, "Ok, I think you need a blood transfusion and we're direct admitting you."

She's admitted at Christ Hospital now. (On 5 South until a bed opens up in 5 West.) Her PCP's Nurse Practitioner was in a couple times, her main Nephrologist came in, OT and GI were there. Nephrology wants to be sure we exhaust all other options before doing a blood transfusion as the transfusion can mess up stuff for a future transplant. Nephrology will pour over her chart and test results, then likely several docs from that group will discuss her case and see what else they can do to find a root cause. No one really knows why she's tanked so badly. I'm hoping maybe by tomorrow they might have a game plan.

We're just hoping they can pinpoint something and treat it so she can get over this hump. Meanwhile, she's gotten so weak that pretty much everyone agrees she probably needs to do some physical rehab after discharge. She was in rehab for 3 weeks a couple years back and it really helped her get back on her feet. The demands here at the house are really just too great for her to get the rest she needs to regain her strength in a positive way. Let's hope the insurance company agrees!

Huge thank you's to everyone who has stepped up and helped us already! At the moment I think we have things under control. I may need help during the 4 day week after the 4th of July as Gus doesn't have Conductive Ed and I can't take off work as the other recruiting leader is out on vacation then. If you have any ideas of care and entertainment for Gus for any of the days from July 5-8, please let me know!

All prayers, good thoughts, healing energy, etc, are greatly appreciated!

At the rate we're going, it could be a while if/when we find out what's going on with her but I'll try to keep things updated here.

Hoping that all of our family and friends are doing well and having a great summer!