Week 15 – Thurs-Friday 15th – Kidney Power!

The good news from this week has been my kidneys.  After a set of blood tests on Thursday the lead specialist contacted me to say things were looking up with my kidney function.

You may recall that the Creatinine level was at a worrying high level of around 200 a few weeks ago when I was taken off the Ambisome drug (for my lung infection).  The Ambisome had worked its magic on my lungs but in doing so had created havoc with my kidneys – causing a large reduction in their effectiveness.

The Creatinine level is now down to 140 and is predicted to reduce to around 100 in a week or so in time for my Stem Cell Transplant (the normal level is around 60-110).

The consultant, Amit Khot had just returned from a conference in the USA and was pretty rushed when he rang through the good news – but was very pleased with the result.

In the meantime my brother Tony has to return to Melbourne again for more blood tests as the previous tests are only valid for 30 days and by the time of my delayed transplant it will be 32 days!  Rules are rules I guess and we have now turned his trip to Melbourne into a Hamilton family Christmas gathering with my sister back from Thailand and Claire back from Perth.  It should be fun.

The other piece of interesting news was Sandie Baskin rang to inform me the Beanie auction has raised well over $3500 for the new ‘garden’ at Ward 7B.  The lastest thinking is to turn the enclosed area into a kinetic sculpture garden and Sandie wanted my thoughts on the plans they had to date (most likely in anticipation of another donation!)

To break the monotony of bike rides around Melbourne we decided to take a Helicopter tour of the bay and the city.  This was a special occasion in a nice red EC 130 helicopter.  I managed to get a front seat next to the pilot (just to keep an eye on his procedures).

Lachy and his girlfriend Hanna joined us as well as Jan’s uncle, David.

Note from Jan: Dave the lovely helicopter pilot made it quite clear that he was to be the only one “pushing the buttons” in  the front. I think he could sense Geoffrey’s itch to get involved!!