My Dehydrated Kidneys: A Journey

I’m dehydrated.  I was startled to say the least when I heard the news, although there were signs. And they were signs that I chose to ignore, if you really want to know, but I'll get to that later. I went to the doctor for my yearly wellness exam.  I always feel so proud of myself when I adult appropriately.  Like I didn’t really have to go to the doctor.  I wasn’t feeling particularly bad, but I know that it’s what a responsible adult should do, and besides, once spring hits I do my “I hope I don’t have cancer or some other terrible disease” round of doctor visits.

Dr. Coker came into the small exam room, looking as disheveled as ever.  Leather bracelets decorated his wrists; leather necklaces decorated his neck.  He has this rather hippie, I workout, but also enjoy a glass or two or three of bourbon every night kind of vibe. He got his medical doctoral degree in the Cayman Islands, which is really quite brilliant  Might as well go to the beach when you know you are going to be stressed. He asked me if there were any changes to my body, how I felt, so on and so forth, typical doctor questions and I sat there with a grimacing smile like I was taking some quiz that I needed to get a graded A instead of what I actually was there for: making sure I was as healthy as possible.  I did have the wherewithal to ask if I could get my blood work done.  Always a good idea, I thought but didn’t say.  Make sure everything is working behind the scenes.

I do love getting my lab results back.  It reminds me of when my final exams were posted in college. My heart would always make a staccatoed beat in my chest as I waited to see if how I studied, what I studied, really paid off in the end. 

Were the multitude of vitamins I took every day, and I do take quite a lot, doing their job? I thought.

I waited with bated breath as I checked the website as one day led to two, then three, then four and still there was nothing.  No results. I started to get worried.  This cannot be a good sign.  A week and one day went by and I got a phone call from the doctor's office.  I looked down at my desk and knew who it was and what I had to do, but I panicked and let it go to voice mail.  Maybe I’m not cut out for this whole being an adult thing.  I immediately called the office back of course and then cursed myself when I realized what a mistake it was to not have answered in the first place.  I went down an AI rabbit hole as I struggled to talk to an actual person, which I finally did, only to be informed that they would put that I called in my file.  It's important to note that it was a Friday, the office closes after noon on Fridays.  Would I really have to go the whole weekend with thinking I’m going to die at any minute or worse yet suffer a slow and painful death ridled with some incurrable disease that only .00001 percent of people in the world have?  Is that what they were expecting me to do?  I waited and then waited some more; but no return phone call.  I even called the office back and asked.

“Your return call is under review,” (whatever that means) the nice lady informed me.  I went to their app next and typed a desperate plea for the nurse to please tell me something, anything about my results.  I then scoured my email.  Did I miss something that would tell me about my results?  I searched and then searched some more. And there it was.

“It’s my kidneys,” I cried to my husband on the phone.  “On a scale of six where six is the best, I’m a three.  This is terrible.  What am I going to do?  You think you would give me a kidney?”

“It’s not going to come to that,” he calmly stated, which only irritated me more.  It’s easy for him to say, I thought, it’s not his body that’s failing him.

But there really wasn’t anything for me to do besides down four bottles of water, one right after the other.

The nurse finally did get back with me, but only after a few more panicked sessions where my brain spiraled to the worse possible case scenarios.  Death at the forefront of course mixed with a healthy dose of lots and lots of self loathing.

“You are severely dehydrated,” the nurse wrote back.  “Drink lots and lots of water and will retest in six weeks.”

And then I began to remember, once my brain started to calm itself down, the leg and toe cramps I’ve been experiencing at night, how I had a fever the week before and was on anti fever medication, which can cause dehydration, and the fact that I went into the sauna for 30 minutes right before the appointment.

The fact still remains that I need to drink more water; we probably all do to a certain extent.  So I bought this half gallon jug.

I like that it has the time stamps to keep me on track.  I will be drinking one of these during my work day and two bottle sized waters in the morning and then my Stanley ( but not a real Stanley, it’s his wannabe bougie cousin Candy) at night.  I hope the doctor will be impressed with my results in six weeks, although I fear his head is still somewhere between the gym and the Cayman Islands, so I won’t get my hopes up for any proud nods of approval by him.  But I know my kidneys are happier and probably a bit confused as to why they are suddenly being fed with all of this water when they have been so starved for attention for so many months. 

I will be better to you dear kidneys, I promise, because we have more of this life to get through and I really do mean it this time.