In the Thick of It

Last night was not a good night. Upon arriving at the hospital, I found out my MIL had not only shown no signs of improvement, but had some slight signs of worsening. Nothing real severe, yet. But while her kidneys are producing fluid, they are not really filtering as they need to. And this is having negative effects on the rest of her system. You know, if the kidneys are happy, the rest of the body ain't happy.

I had the feeling in visiting with her last night that she didn't really recognize me. Now this is probably the meds, I know. But it's disheartening. We've been wanting to see improvement.

In the morning yesterday, when the family was meeting with the doctors, my BIL asked if my MIL was out of the woods yet. At that time, there were slight improvements. Nothing huge, but hey, we'll take any positive news we can get, right? But the doctor was quick to shut him down. He said, "She's not out of the woods yet. In fact, she's in the thick of it." It was a very sobering statement.

It was after that that we started to hear bad news. The kidneys weren't filtering. Their output was darkening in color, which wasn't good. The white cells have not changed, have not decreased.

We had hoped by now there should be some significant upturns. The meds should be kicking in here. I realize that for the first couple days she couldn't keep the meds down, so we've been trying to be patient, but we really hoped by now there would be some good news.

Dh went back to the hospital late last night. I stayed home with ds, who was unusually exhausted. Dh said that he heard some positive things. The white cell count had dropped very slightly! Nothing to get excited about yet, but we can be hopeful here. The kidney's output was not as dark as earlier. Another good sign, but nothing too significant at this point either. We have our fingers crossed. Could the meds be kicking into gear?

Too soon to tell yet. And too small of an improvement to really indicate anything.

But we're hoping.