Heading to Georgetown

February 8, 2008

I have floated Erin's eyeballs this week. If low fluid intake had caused her uptick in BUN and creatinine last week (as I suspected), rather than her having weak or damaged kidneys cause by celebrex and cyclophosphamide (as her doctor supposed), I wanted to prove that the more virtuous would prevail. I packed Erin off to school each day with a sports bottle filled with a juice and water combo. I cooked spicy food so she would have motivation to finish her water at mealtime. Uncharacteristically, I even set a good example by downing my whole glass of water each meal. I may have even emptied a beer mug or two to show her that keeping hydrated was easy (I did not explain that beer was actually dehydrating rather than hydrating, lest I confuse her. The point was swallowing more liquids).

I got the faxed results a little while ago and the results are a bit difficult to interpret because the sample was sent to a different lab with different reference ranges. Here's how they compare:

Last week:

BUN 30 which was above the cut off for normal (>25)
Creatinine .8 which was in the normal range but significantly higher than the .5 in early January

This week:

BUN 15 which is below the cut off for normal (>18)
Creatinine .64 which is also in the normal range

I could tell I had done a good job getting liquids in her because I managed to dilute her hemoglobin from 11.8 to 10.6.

After school today we will pack up the soccer van and head to Georgetown for a weekend of kick-it-around. I like our chances in our bracket and full well expect to make it to the second day of play. I like our chances even more of Erin resuming celebrex (No, I haven't gotten a call from clinic yet giving us the green flag, but our engines are revving, and I'm sure we'll get the signal).