Chapter II: Waiting when you don’t know what you’re waiting for.

In January 2011, I had an eGFR of 30. This equates to a rough percentage of kidney function, so while things were certainly looking less than stellar, they weren’t yet quite severe enough to warrant treatment – much to my surprise!

This was because the treatment consisted of chemotherapy and high doses of steroids. Both of these have some pretty serious side effects. After much discussion, we decided it was in my best interest to hold off on those for now. Instead, we would monitor my symptoms and blood tests results closely, while waiting to see what happened next. At this point, we didn’t know whether I’d continue to deteriorate, or whether things would settle down by themselves.

This “wait and see” approach continued for the next twelve months, during which I tried (with varying levels of success) to ignore what was happening to me. I graduated from teachers’ college and started working full-time.

By February 2012 things had begun to deteriorate further, and I discovered that chemotherapy is not only for cancer patients, cats really aren’t very helpful at organising medication, a surprisingly high percentage of my friends and family have a bizarre fondness for surgical masks and gloves and that when your hair starts falling out, your drain tends to clog! Great fun!