Oops!

Haha I apparently forgot to update after my last appointment ;) I think it's because I updated it on Facebook, oops, need to remember to do both!

It was basically just a quick checkup, he said everything felt okay on the outside (kidneys were the same size, not growing too much yet), and if my blood work came back good then I wouldn't need the ctscan until next year or so, unless there were any problems before then.
The blood work all came back "good", so my kidney function was still high, etc. and no major problems.

Something I keep thinking about is that a few years back someone nearby needed a kidney transplant, so I decided to go get the blood work done and see if I was a possible donor.

People often ask me how I'm doing as far as the aneurysm stuff goes, and I'm really 100% recovered from that, as far as I know. I don't have the headaches anymore, which is great. I'll have a follow-up angiogram in August, in which they'll check the current aneurysm and make sure it's scarring up nicely (with my fancy $32,000 platinum wires!), as well as check every other artery in my head to make sure there are no others, or new ones forming. From there, if it all looks good, I won't have to have another angio for another 5 years, since new ones take at least a few years to form and be a problem.

I have random kidney pain every now and then, sometimes from a stone, or the cysts, or stretching of kidney/cyst tissue apparently causes pain as well. So I try not to worry about the pain, unless I have a fever lol, otherwise there's not much I can do but tough it out.

That's about all I can think of to update for now, things are going great and I still feel like a normal person (ha as normal as I'll ever be :P)

Hm, more interesting stuff...

I was doing some reading today and came across an article that said this:
"The number one cause of death of individuals with polycystic kidney disease is left ventricular hypertrophy LVH, or enlargement of the ventricle muscle of the heart."

This made me curious, because my mother (and her father as well) died of Congestive Heart Failure at 62 and 61, respectively, and I wondered if it was linked. So I googled it, and I found quite a few articles and patient references to PKD related CHF.

"Elevated blood pressure and increased left ventricular
mass are associated with congestive heart disease." From the PKD.org website.
Anyway, just another interesting thing to add to the list of things to watch for. I'm just so curious because my mom was never diagnosed with PKD, but from what I've read it varies in degrees, and some people don't even find out they have it until quite later in life, but by that time she had CHF.

I have my next appt. with the kidney doctor on the 28th this month, he wants me to have a follow-up CT-scan to see how the disease is progressing and just make sure everything is good. Will update again then :)