An Unfortunate Change of Plans

Esther and I are spending Christmas Eve here at the hospital. I brought her in this morning for a kidney biopsy after lab results yesterday showed a significant jump in her creatinine. The docs suspect that she is having some rejection and they need to know the type and the degree in order to treat her effectively. Praise God, the biopsy went without complication and she is resting comfortably in the recovery room.

Specific results from the biopsy won't be available until this evening, but we just got news that her creatinine is even higher this morning. Not good! The original plan was to wait until biopsy result were available before starting treatment. Given the continued rise in creatinine, they have decided to give her a blast of IV prednisone here and now. This is the same medication/procedure that we did the day before Thanksgiving when she had her first rejection episode. I'm not sure why we keep colliding with the holidays, but nevertheless, that's where we are.

Because today is a hospital holiday and staffing here is low, Esther is going to be admitted to the pediatric floor for a few hours so she can be monitored while she has her infusion. The expectation is that she'll be able to go home later this afternoon.

Beyond that, Plan A is to bring Esther back to the hospital tomorrow and the next day as an out-patient for two more blasts of IV prednisone. If tonight's pathology report shows that she has a higher grade of rejection, we will switch to Plan B which would be to admit her to the hospital for a series of treatments with a different medication. This would involve being an in-patient for a couple days. We'll just have to wait until this evening's report to find out which plan we'll be following.

Well, you can imagine Esther's disappointment! For the last 12 years, we have had a tradition of spending Christmas day with dear friends in Hartland, Vermont. Plan A means Esther spends part of Christmas Day in the hospital allowing for the possibility of a modified version of our tradition. Plan B means she spends all of Christmas and beyond in the hospital.

I’ll let you know what happens.

P.S. Merry Christmas!