Mom's Kidneys

In my absence, my mom decided that it was high time and she should get herself checked up by a Gynecologist and get all medical tests done that a woman should ideally in her Menopausal stage, so she chose to visit Hospital (Hospital No.1) near our home and got her Intrauterine Copper-T device removed and also got her basic Blood tests done which include CBC: Complete Blood Count, KFT: Kidney Function Test and LFT: Liver Function Test and also Thyroid and Lipid Profiles; to her shock, almost every count came abnormal, but the worst were the kidney counts with Creatinine values as high as 2.6 and also increased Blood Urea and Uric Acid levels which were perhaps resulting in the bitter taste in her mouth all-the-time.

What next? My mom chose to go to Hospital No.2.

One of my cousin’s wife is a Doctor who is the head of the Blood Bank in Hospital no.2 and in my physical absence, she thought seeking my cousin sister-in-law’s advice will be helpful in getting herself checked up by a Nephrologist whom I will now refer to as Doctor N-1 who in a blink of an eye, upon seeing my mummy’s reports suggested that she get an Ultrasound from that Hospital. The Medical Practitioner who did my mother’s ultrasound of the Abdomen region told my mom as he was doing the Ultrasound and looking at the Display screen showing her internal organs, “it is a wonder you are still alive Aunty, as per what I am seeing, your kidneys, both of them are beyond repair and you should have been dead by now!” Who speaks that way, mummy wondered.

N-1 then told Mom to get herself admitted in that Hospital and undergo a Kidney Biopsy. And obediently so and in the meantime put my mother on a strict diet, with boiled vegetables and no sugar or salt, my mother got herself admitted and with her sister by her side she got a Kidney Biopsy done. N-1 got N-2, a senior Nephrologist who had retired from one of Delhi’s most premier Government hospitals on board as a Consultant to conduct the Biopsy. Then they told her to collect the reports some days later.

When she enquired about the reports N-1 had the cheek to tell her, “Mam, your Biopsy slides didn’t get made properly so please get yourself admitted again for another Kidney Biopsy, but otherwise we are telling you that both your kidneys are severely damaged and on the verge of failure. You should get your dialysis started immediately and start looking out for kidney donors as you would need a transplant very soon”.

Getting Biopsies, dialysis or transplants done is and never was or will be a joke for anyone, but it was astonishing to be hearing it in that cold and heartless way from a doctor of repute.

My mother’s intuition told her she was in the wrong Doctor’s hands and then through my sister-in-law, mom connected with the old senior N-2 to check if he had any spare slides of the Biopsy conducted by him, luckily he had and he willingly gave a slide that my brother went and collected from my sister-in-law.

What next now? Mummy sat pondering. She lost a lot of weight during that duration as well because of the kind of diet she was on based on the advice of N-1 at Hospital No. 2, which she had since lost faith in and abandoned!

As my mother tried to think who is the next Doctor she can possibly approach, she picked the phone up and rand a Neuro-specialist who had helped diagnose my young brother’s Ocular Myasthenia about 5 years back in Year 2007. Mummy called him and sought his help to refer her to a good Nephrologist. He referred Mummy to a lady Nephrologist Doctor working in that same hospital, he was working in. Allow me to name that (lady) Nephrologist as N-3 in Hospital No.3.

As the case is with most hospitals, which we gradually learnt, they fail to believe in Diagnostic test reports of other Hospitals and thus N-3 advised my mother to get her blood tests done from Hospital no.3 again. However, there was a bright point here amidst all the gloom that had descended, N-3 while preparing her case sheet had asked mom a lot of questions to help her understand the origins of her kidney related problems, and one of the findings and learnings that I want to share with you all follows in my next post: It is about a deadly pill that had ruined it all!