Kidney Saga part 6

After eating, the nurse asked if I wanted a shower. OH YES. I'd been in hospital for more than three days, a shower would be lovely, thanks. After three days of poking, prodding, stickies, ultrasound gel and general craziness, a shower sounded like the best thing in the world. The nurse spent a little time covering various bandages before I got in, but the shower itself was wonderful and felt life-affirming.

After the shower, I got a visit from a doctor who said I'd have to be in the hospital until at least Wednesday, when the results from the biopsy would be back. As it was Monday at that point, I wasn't too put out. I hadn't expected a long stay, but then I hadn't expected any hospital stay. The doctor also told me that the heart problem was almost certainly due to the kidney issue, and that I don't have diabetes or even pre-diabetes, which was a slight surprise to me. I kind of assumed I was headed that way, but maybe I can avoid that particular demon.

All showered up and with the news of my longer stay, my mother and sister visited. They came over from the Seattle area to help my hubby-Eric deal with the stress and lend support. It was great to see them. Most of the days in the hospital were spent playing on my phone, since there isn't a lot to do when you are confined to a bed and getting your vitals tested or blood drawn or a new ultrasound every couple of hours. In addition, I could not concentrate on words. I couldn't read or listen to a podcast. It was annoyingly futile to try. So having visitors was great.

Once they left, a nurse set up an IV and introduced me to a new medications that caused some interesting sensations. The first was... a warmth in a place I didn't expect. But since it was a medication that was supposed to stimulate urine production, that made sense. The side-effect that didn't make sense was that it altered my taste buds for about six hours. I couldn't stand to even drink water during that time because it tasted so bad. Still, there are worse things than having bad taste buds.

Night came, I slept. Not well. The nurses were on a four-hour vital check schedule, so I got woken regularly in the night. When I couldn't sleep, I played my phone games. It was about all I could mentally manage.