Monday, Monday

When I arrived this morning (slept in our apartment last night), Mom had already taken a walk to the nurse's station and back. She's doing very well - managing the pain well, great attitude, getting an appetite back (slowly).

There is a minor concern that the kidney isn't coming up to speed quickly enough. I stress minor concern since it's not unusual. The medication they have to give her can actually interfere with the kidney's activity. So they will play with her medications and do whatever to get it up to speed.

That said, her creatinine level is interesting. The creatinine level is a measure of how well the kidney is functioning. A normal kidney has a creatinine value of 0.5 to 1.0. I looked up Mom's lab numbers from November and found that her number was 7.2. As I recall, a number of 5 indicates kidney failure and gets one into the dialysis program. Mom's latest creatinine number is 3.2. This is not a great number for a kidney, but half where she was at without it. So, the new kidney must be doing some good. Just a bit groggy still.

Mom was told this morning that she has a female kidney from a 30 year old. Mom gets weepy talking about this. She was offered the chance to write a note to the family which they will deliver for her.