So pretty much the day after I had my ultrasound, my GP surgery called to say that the doctor would like to see me about my scan results. Yeah, I bet they bloody well do now that we finally have a diagnosis! No shit, Sherlock! Well, the next available appointment was a mere 3 weeks and six days away! Oh well, it is what it is, I’ll take it. And this was all BEFORE Coronavirus went absolutely batshit.
Well, on Monday 9 March I trotted down to my GP surgery to find out what was going to happen next. I was expecting a fairly standard consultation, referral back to gastroenterology and the completely ridiculous consultant I’d seen last time who had told me I would have to live with it.
Erm, not so much. The gallstones part, to be fair, was straight forward. Referral to gastro but obviously by this stage, Coronavirus was gathering pace and it was just going to be a wait and see in terms of how long it would take to get an appointment and when. Fair enough.
The interesting part came by way of a discussion about my kidneys…again! More to the point, the “anatomical anomaly” that the radiographer found very “curious” during the ultrasound. Well, it’s a bit more than curious let me tell you. It turns out that I have, what is called, a Duplex Kidney (my left kidney). I basically have an extra kidney attached to the left kidney which is why it showed up as so much bigger on the ultrasound. My doctor showed me the pictures of it from the ultrasound and it looks bloody huge! There’s no definitive reason as to why this happens. I was born with it.
If a Duplex Kidney is going to cause problems and needs attention, this normally happens in childhood with multiple urinary infections. However, not one urinary infection when I was a child so, clearly never a problem. Therefore, I have managed to go through 45 years of my life without knowing I have a rare and special kidney! As it didn’t cause me any problems in my childhood and not knowing I had it until now, there’s no need to do anything with it.
All the doctors in my surgery have had a look at the pictures apparently because none of them had seen one in a patient before. They’ve seen it in the text books, but never in a patient. That’s how rare it is. Must admit to feeling quite special at this point!
Apparently, it goes quite a way to explaining why my blood pressure is low because, with this extra chunk of kidney, my body gets rid of toxins pretty quickly and it also explains that, when I did used to drink, I wasn’t a hangover sufferer. Damn the medication and not being able to drink now! My doctor took my blood pressure whilst I was there and it was better than hers! I’ve got a good 15 years on her, a good 7 stone and I’m a smoker. Have some of that! Back of the net!
So, I made my way back home feeling quite chuffed that if my sister ever needs a kidney, she’s getting the right one, I’m keeping the left and special one and we should both be functioning normally! Obviously, I phoned Mum and told her and just confirmed with her that I’d never had a urinary infection as a child. She confirmed that aside from really bad Chicken Pox, two bouts of pneumonia and a knackered back, I was actually a pretty healthy child. I think she’s actually quite happy about my Duplex Kidney and took great pleasure in informing me that she would be dining out on this little nugget of information for quite some time!
The upshot of seeing my GP in terms of my gallstones is that I do have an appointment with the Surgical Team at a different hospital to my usual one. It’s not until the middle of May and, of course, this is all subject to Coronavirus moving the goalposts. The alternative hospital doesn’t have an A&E Department so I’m assuming that they are moving non-urgent “routine” appointments and surgeries to the other hospital to keep the A&E based hospital free for Coronavirus patients. That appointment will decide whether they can just remove the bag of marbles that are swinging around in my gallbladder at the moment or whether they decide to just whip out the whole thing. In the meantime, my GP advised that if I have an “episode” where the little buggers get stuck that lasts for more than hour, I should dial 999.
Unfortunately, I had an “episode” a couple of days after seeing my GP that lasted for just over two hours. I didn’t phone 999 at that time because the NHS is just way overwhelmed with Coronavirus right now. I’ve said to myself that if an “episode” lasts more than two hours, then I’ll call. The pain is absolutely awful and I think two hours of that is enough and, quite frankly, if I haven’t thrown my guts up by that point, it’s not going to happen any time soon.
We shall see what happens in the coming weeks.
Living The BPD Life 