Creatinine level, 8 days post-transplant

Yesterday, Rob had a quick blood draw and urine sample at the Duke Clinic. It was his first "check up" since being released from the hospital last Thursday. He will actually go to Clinic on Wednesday mornings from here on out, so tomorrow we'll be back at the same Clinic, doing the same thing - blood sample, urine sample and all kinds of other vitals. They will also check up on our yellow data sheet, the one I wrote about and included a picture of in my last blog.

We voted this afternoon, and as we were leaving the polling place, we received a phone call from our transplant coordinator. She gave us great news! She said his numbers all looked good, and his creatinine yesterday was a 3.1 - wow!

Creatinine, plainly stated, is just a by-product of protein in your body, and it is mainly filtered out of our bodies by our kidneys. A lower number is better than a high number. When Rob went into the hospital just before his transplant, his creatinine was a whopping 16! At 5 days post-transplant, it was 7.3. So in the 3.5 days that separated his hospital exit and his first Clinic workup, his kidney function improved by 50%. At least this is what I've read on the internet - that when your creatinine numbers double or half, depending on how you look at it, it's equivalent to a 50% increase/decrease in function. But I can confirm that with a doctor tomorrow at Clinic. You never know what's really true on the internet!

Rob has been napping off and on for the past 4 hours. Poor guy is so tired! He stayed up late reading a book, and he awoke 45 minutes before the alarm clock was set to go off, so he only got about 4 hours of sleep total. Rob was complaining about some stomach pain/discomfort this afternoon. It's what made him want to go to sleep. He couldn't get in a comfortable position on the couch or the recliner, and he kept saying that his tummy felt uneasy. But he made himself lie down on his side and within 3 minutes, he was snoozing away in dreamland. He just awoke and he said his stomach feels much better.

It's getting to be about that time each night when I mix together random ingredients and create food fusion in the kitchen! Our finances have been a little tight, to say the least, but we have enough food to get us through to payday. We have a great deal of faith in God that He will provide us with the necessities like food, shelter, etc. And of course He has been providing us with these needs! We have a wonderful church family that has been and will continue to help us in the next couple of months while Rob's disability pay is lower than his usual paychecks. And I might be picking up a few hours of work in the near future, which could help bridge the financial gap a bit, but that's still not set in stone - I'm still praying and seeking God's guidance on this.

But anyway, for those of you who know what it's like to have 4 days left until you can go out and buy a bunch of groceries, maybe you'll smile at the dinner I fused together last night. I had some ground beef that needed to be either cooked or frozen, so this was a definite must-do as far as ingredients go. Then I dug around in the fridge and found a white onion, and almost a 3/4 full jar of low-sodium alfredo sauce (yes, that exists!) Then I found a package of Healthy Harvest whole wheat egg noodles. Cooked up the ground beef with onion and sprinkled some italian seasoning on it. Added the sauce, simmered it until the noodles were done. Then mixed it all together - it was delicious! I decided to call it Homemade Hamburger Helper. Next time I make this, I want to add some green beans to it.

I'd write more, but it's time to make some food fusion!