Baby Nate Update

We met with Nate's Kidney Doctor today. Nate had blood work taken last week and we were anxiously awaiting his new numbers. His previous creatinine number was .9. The doctor at that time set a new number where he believed he would max out at, that was at a .8. Well, obviously God has a sense of humor, because his number today was .79, so we are very pleased with that number. Each time we get his blood taken, it seems one of his kidney functions is off in some way. In the past it has showed varying levels of his salt and acid, and today it was his potassium, so not all good news. We will need to continue to give him medicine to help him with all those areas. The doctor wants to start him on an additional medication to help his kidney functions; however, one of the side effects of this medicine is an increase in potassium. So, we will have to wait to start him on this medication once we can get his potassium levels under control.

The goal for Nate's kidneys are for them to last as long as possible. The doctor went into great detail about what causes them to not last as long. There is a part of his kidneys that do the "filtering". Average humans have about a million of these filters. The doctor is estimating that he has about 1/3 of that. Because of this, his kidneys are working three times harder then most kidneys. This works perfectly fine for awhile; however, the problem becomes that they are getting scarred from the overworking. Once they start getting scarred their ability to function becomes compromised, and thus the need for dialysis. We are hoping and praying that his little kidneys keep pumping and filtering for as long as possible. Had his numbers been better, we were going to be able to jump to appointments and blood work every two months. However, because of his potassium, we will have to be back next month. Oh well, we are thankful for the tremendous progress he has made and will continue to pray and focus on doing what we can to improve his numbers.