Luxury

Austin had an appointment with his nephrologist today. That’s the kidney doctor for those of you not in the know. While we don’t have any official results from his labs yet, she did say that his estimated GFR is now about 60. If you remember back to last spring when we were trying to decide whether or not to continue chemo, our dilemma was driven in large part by an abysmal GFR of 27. Anything below 30 makes a patient eligible for dialysis and a GFR below 15 indicates that it’s time for transplant.

So, while 60 certainly isn’t normal, it’s pretty darn good. In terms of predicting what’s still to come … well, that’s a dangerous game for anyone and an extremely inaccurate one when it comes to Austin, who sits all alone is his own little category of patients (or patient, singular, since he’s the only one with quite his history of procedures and risk factors). But she did say that this little kidney could last and last … three more years, five more years, ten more years.

We are back where we were the first time Austin finished cancer treatment, when we assumed his kidney would keep chugging along until puberty when rapid growth and muscle development would put such stress on the little organ that it would stop working and finally need to be replaced. That scenario was thrown completely out the window during his relapse, as the kidney seemed to plunge deeper and deeper into distress, caused by the relentless onslaught of surgery, radiation and chemo. A year ago, we were hoping for a kidney that would work for weeks and months, not years and years.

Funny how life’s victories and traumas are all of a relative nature. If I’d had a perfectly healthy son who suddenly experienced kidney failure and needed a transplant at age 15, I’d be devastated. But for us, considering where we’ve been and all we’ve had to endure and all we’ve almost had to endure, kidney failure in adolescence seems like quite a luxury. Quite a luxury indeed.