Hot Date Follow-Up

Alternate Title: Filled 'Er Up and Turned 'Er In (Gross, I know. Sorry.)

LAST weekend I had my Hot Date with a plastic bottle. I managed to make the most of my day my doing laundry and making dinner, as well as taking in copious amounts of football. Remember the before picture of my bottle? Here is an after:

KIDDING! You gross weirdo. Why would you want a picture of my pee?

I did my test on Sunday and had to take the Jug-O-Pee into a Lab on Monday morning. I was glad to find a little, quiet, insurance-covered clinic about ten minutes from home and even closer to the office. Since I am in the same hospital-system as the Lab is, it was kind of funny to "talk shop" with someone drawing my blood and looking at my whiz.

It was not until I was walking in the door to drop off my Jug that I remember just how many check boxes had been checked on the Lab Slip: 11. Eek - eleven?! Lucky for me I know some of the tricks for having blood drawn - the first that works for me is a clenched fist starting as they call my name and the more important one is to drink lots of water before going in for a blood draw. It helps keep blood flow up and pulls the veins up to the top, making them easier to poke.

I was glad to see that I was only going to have five tubes of blood drawn. I am the type that can not watch my own blood being drawn, but have no problem with seeing it on the counter. Still a little weird, but does not make me faint, so that's a good thing.

The most humorous part of the Lab visit was when I got the look from the technician and a "joke" of sorts: "I need a sample of your urine, which is funny because I have a whole bottle right here!" Yes indeed, even though I had a half gallon of Liquid Gold, or is that Golden Liquid, I needed to give her just a little bit more for one of the tests. Craziness.

Fast forward to Friday and my having just orgotten about the blood and pee fest from five days earlier when the phone rings and it is my Nephrologists office. I ducked the call for reasons that require their own blog post, but when I called back I was not sure what to expect. I spoke with the nurse and she said there is not too much concern on the Doctor's part, he does want to get me onto some meds pretty quickly to see how things go:

50,000 units of Vitamin D weekly for one month (1,000 units daily after that, OTC)
5 mg Lisinopril (for high blood pressure)

I am releived that it was not a "need to see you this week" call and that the drugs prescribed are fairly mundane as far as Kidney Disease goes. We are going to re-test again mid-week next week so that we have results to look at before our appointment on the 17th. At that time I am bracing for a bit more in the medicine department, probably a lecture on my weight and activity and a plan for proceeding. Not in that order.