So even though I’m in incredible pain with my feet at the moment, myself and Ste got to the transplant clinic at the New Royal Liverpool today. What an effort. Traffic jams, rubbish parking, plus it’s absolutely freezing today. But we did it. Sat in outpatients waiting for an inevitability late appointment.
I haven’t written in a good long while, but for the last year or so I’ve been having foot problems. It began with uncontrollable gout flares. Which I now have under control. But we had to purchase me a wheelchair! And I’m usually to be found with a walking stick these days. The gout however had left me quite immobile for long periods of time and so my arches have fallen and I now have flat feet, and all the pain that comes with that. Honestly, the only thing that helps is steroids, but I’ve put so much weight on, and they’re so bad for you long term that I’m trying to get off them. Then today of all days I woke up unable to walk, probably as I had a day out a few days ago and now I’m paying for it. Stubborn thing that I am, I still insisted on walking in.
Anyway, I was greeted by medical students and a doc I’ve not met before. Had to explain I’d been asked to come in for an examination after a few docs had reviewed my recent scans and were thinking that I could actually have a new kidney on my right hand side. For those that don’t know, that’s the side the surgeons mucked up when Steve gave me his kidney. I was told the vessels were too calcified to use again. It would mean removing Betty, dialysis and then a transplant in the same place. But now they think they could actually get one in without removing Betty. So I could go on the transplant list when I need to. Which is massive news!
Seems once Betty kidney is consistently below 14% function I can go back on the list for a preemptive transplant 😳 I even saw the chap who did my surgery 9 years ago. I’d celebrate if I could move.
The Adventures of Betty the Kidney 