Sunday, January 15, 2012
Small problems lead to major problems
My wife started coughing and choking all the time and went to an allergist for a year. The more pills and inhalers he gave her the worse she got. When the only tool you have is a hammer then every problem tends to become a nail. One day I walked into his office and told him she is getting worse and he is doing nothing. We finally found out what the problem was when she went for a routine physical and they saw from her creatinine that her kidneys were almost gone. She had a very rare autoimmune disease called Wegner's Granulomatosa which can attack the kidneys and sinus and lung. IF it had been detected a year earlier, then massive doses of prednisone MIGHT have saved her kidneys. She went on hemodialysis, then to peritoneal dialysis, then back to hemo, then her sister donated a kidney and it died in 12 hours, then she received a cadaverous kidney which just barely works, but it keeps her off of hemodialysis. But it all started with the coughing, choking. And they used a gadolinium contrast dye in an MRI and that caused a second serious autoimmune disease, nephrogenic fibrosine dermapothy which is incurable and very painful. And she has a third autoimmune disease, Graves syndrome (thyroid). When she started in dialysis, they had to insert a shylie access in her neck for 6 months while they built a fistula in her arm. The shylie caused complete occlusion of the SVC (superior vena cava) so that caused all her veins to enlarge to compensate. And they cant insert a stent because they can see what they are doing and more contrast dye would damage the kidney, and she is otherwise asymtomatic for the occlusion, and then nature of the circulatory system is that it would probably occlude again anyway even with the stent. For the want of a nail the horseshoe was lost, For the want of the horseshoe the horse was lost. For the want of the horse, the soldier was lost. For the want of the soldier, the battle was lost. For the want of the battle, the kingdom was lost. And all for want of the nail.
