We found out that my mom's high calcium levels are being caused by her THYROID, not her KIDNEY. Normal levels are between 9 to 10.5, and she is at 11.1. I think the thyroid has been the problem the whole time, because it can affect the kidneys. Basically it affects a lot of organs in the body and one of the things it can do is cause gall and kidney stones if the calcium level in the body becomes elevated. I'm so relieved. Its not like, yay, my mom is having thyroid problems! but I think it's not as serious as having a kidney problem with only one kidney.
What she has is called "hyperparathyroidism." Say that real fast three times ;). But mostly, the parathyroid gland is responsible for regulating calcium within the blood. So something went wacky with the parathyroid and it caused all kinds of hell in my mom's body. The calcium level went up and everything starting going bad. I think she had this problem for a while and was told it wasn't life-threatening, so she took it as no big deal and never thought of it again. But if I remember right, quite a while ago she said she would have to get it removed at some time. But then Wednesday, right when the doctor said they had found something on her thyroid, it all came back to me that in the past she had mentioned being told that she had some kind of benign tumor on it. But she never got anything done about it. AGH!!! Again, maybe all of the suffering she went through could have been avoided if she would have followed up on that! Of course I wouldn't be jumping on the bandwagon to have it removed. Plus it seems like the doctors were in no hurry to remove it, not that I know of at least. Anyway...
In this case the tumor isn't bad...its benign. It is NOT cancer. It isn't really doing any harm other than raising her calcium level. However, she's not well enough to have it removed. As long as she is feeling fine, she'll be okay. If she starts feeling sick again, like she did before she went into the hospital though, she needs to go back and see the doctor immediately. Otherwise, she is going to see him again in August.
I found this REALLY long article about this condition on a website, and it is really quite interesting to read because you can see SO MUCH of my mom's symptoms and understand where they were coming from. Its not fun to read, but very educational. I mean, if you read it and think of it as a story of my mom's body, it's really interesting. I know, I'm a nerd. Anyway, if you want to at least skim it, it's at http://www.lef.org/protocols/prtcls-txt/t-prtcl-087.html.
Otherwise she is doing very well. She has gained a little more weight. She is now up to 122 pounds. When she was sick, she weighed 97 pounds! This is a very healthy weight for her. She is 5' 1 and 1/2."
She is getting around very well, walking farther every day with her walker. As I said previously, she is trying to do too much too soon, and was told by both her physical therapist and nurse to slow down. She is doing exercises daily, as recommended by her physical therapist. The PT has her doing exercises that are helping her to gain flexibility and strength in her leg muscles in an effort to get her walking on her own again. Soon she will be walking with a cane! We bought her one today!
That's it for now. So I'm pretty much relieved, but she is not 100 percent well and not out of the woods. We'll never know if/when her calcium levels will rise again, which would make her sick all over again. I told her that if she feels even a TINY bit like she was feeling before she went into the hospital, she is to tell me IMMEDIATELY!!! If she let this go, it could start affecting her other organs...and her other kidney is probably pretty vulnerable. Plus, her body is still not strong enough to endure being sick like that again. So I don't feel "safe" really. We just have to wait it out until August, hope that she doesnt have any problems before then, and that things are better when she goes back to the doctor.
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