A Big Snafu

sna·fu    (sn-f) KEY  Slang

NOUN:pl. sna·fus   

A chaotic or confused situation.

ADJECTIVE:

In a state of confusion or chaos.

TRANSITIVE VERB:
sna·fued, sna·fu·ing, sna·fus

To make confused or chaotic.

 

     Snafu, … I hate that word. My mom used it a lot when you had a hitch in your plans or a problem would come up in her latest knitting pattern. Well, I have a snafu at the moment,  which derailed my sparkle campaign somewhat for the last two weeks. I will share it with you all, because if you haven’t noticed I’m an open book.

     Two weeks ago I went to the Dr. for lab results, expecting the usual your triglycerides are too high, but not expecting anything to bad, only to have the Dr. say I was in the moderate stage of KIDNEY FAILURE! Calmly, she said she was taking me off my diuretic medication I’ve taken for years, and sending me to a kidney specialist. I hardly heard anything else she said after that. I protested a bit about the diuretic because I need it, or I really get puffy looking and feeling. She snapped, “Well, how soon do you want to be on dialysis”? When she saw I got upset over that, she came closer with a Kleenex box and tried to smooth it over.

     I went home and read where having 39% of your kidneys working fit on the scale of kidney failure on the kidney.org website and called Marcy. She came over and we cried and talked till Sydney came home from a Suns game she was at. Syd and I cried some more.  The next day I was in shock yet. I wrote to a good friend of mine, telling her my crappy news, who said, “Satan would love to derail your plans, don’t let him”. That was good advice.

     So, for the last two weeks despite walking and working, I haven’t lost a pound, because what I lost in fat; I've gained in fluid retention, but that can’t go on forever right? The kidney specialist ran some initial tests and get this…he thinks I damaged my kidneys taking NSAIDS or ibuprohen for my back problems! If you skip any of this post, don’t skip this last part!

      All fall, I’ve have had horrible back problems, and was prescribed pain pills, but I didn’t want to get addicted to them, so I "made do" on ibuprohen. I’d take three to do any kind of work. When Kerry and I were on vacation I would take three sometimes twice a day, to handle all the sitting and maybe a pm one to sleep.  Never did I ever, think that would be bad for me. They have anti-inflammatory properties as well as pain relief I thought.

     As of now, I have discontinued two medications and of course, will probably never take another ibuprohen in my life! They will retest everything in three weeks and see if I can gain any function I lost back, or stop the deterioration at least.  I hope anyone reading this will take away three lessons I learned the hard way. 1)  Don’t be your own Dr.  2) Be careful with over the counter medication and 3) Don’t wait until the eleventh hour to start taking care of yourself in the first place. I wish I hadn’t.

     After two weeks of feeling sorry for myself, being mad at the situation and scared of what’s ahead, I decided the sparkle program goes on as planned. Like Shelbey said, “Full speed ahead”. What really makes me mad is I don't really have a choice now if i want to live longer and I like things to be my idea not a have to situation.

      I rode my horse yesterday for the first time… he’s either part donkey or the victim of a lot of pilot error before I got him, but at least he didn’t buck me off! The only casualty was Sydneys’ three toes. He stepped on her foot! All the other days she’s been there with me, she had flip flops on! I kept saying you need boots on in case he steps on you.  Once again I was right, and she was darn glad she had boots on yesterday!

      I’m eating right and walking 30 minutes. I will have to increase the 30 minutes if I don’t start going down on the scale anytime soon but I'm still gonna sparkle; still gonna shine, in spite of this new snafu. Like I said I hate snafu’s.