Today we had the big "come to Jesus" meeting with Dr. Mallea. I had hoped this day would never come and, although I knew it would someday I really wasn't ready for it to be today.
I had been thinking of Chris' kidney health in terms of his percentage of function. It had been 27% for years and years. So today the first thing I asked Dr. Mallea is what the percentage is now. He did the calculation and came up with 9-13%. *ACK!* No wonder he hasn't been feeling good!
Dr. Mallea had us both sit down and he really talked to us about getting the catheter put in for dialysis. Chris REALLY doesn't want to go this route, but Dr. Mallea is making it sound necessary. See, if the time comes when Chris needs emergency dialysis, it'll be too late to put in the catheter in his abdomen. They'll have to do one in his chest, and Chris will have to do the blood dialysis instead of the abdomen fluid dialysis -- which is problematic because of his heart condition.
I'm nervous about Chris' gamble. If he ends up with the blood dialysis thing and gets an infection, he may no longer be a candidate for a transplant.
We did schedule an appointment with Dr. Davidson for a 2nd opinion on 10/4. I personally doubt we'll hear anything different this visit, but who knows? Maybe there's some other treatment out there that we haven't tried.
