Saturday, July 15, 2017

Genes & Geneology

For the past several weeks I have been mapping the family tree on my dad's side of the family. A distant relative on our tree published a 438 page document in the 1980s that contains a wealth of information on various family members. Using that document as well as Ancestry.com, I have been able to trace our tree as far back as the 1600s - yet there is so much more to find out!

This quest has brought forth birth, marriage and death certificates. Military records, land deeds, etc. The death certificates have been the most interesting finds for me because I now know how how deep kidney disease runs as well as the number of occurrences of aneurysms.

Having been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease last winter, these were bonus finds for me.
This past Wednesday morning I found blood in my urine, that subsided slightly through the day. Thursday morning I was awakened at 3:30 am by excruciating pain on the right backside of my body. When I urinated and saw all of the blood I quickly dressed and went to the emergency department. A CT scan showed a 6mm kidney stone. Thankfully, the docs aren't going to wait for this to pass on its own so Friday afternoon they took me into surgery and, under general anesthesia, inserted a stent in the ureter. Prescriptions in hand, I went home.

Apparently, the stent is doing a couple of different things. It is preventing the stone from blocking the tube so urine can pass and enlarging the tube so it drops down and to a place where the docs can get to it.

So, here I am. Miserable from pain, even though they sent me home with Norco, I am supposed to follow up with urology next week to have the Stent removed. I'm pretty confident I will be in the emergency department again before that.

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