{"id":54058,"date":"2022-03-22T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T10:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=54058"},"modified":"2022-03-22T06:03:48","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T10:03:48","slug":"health-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=54058","title":{"rendered":"(Lack of) Health Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know not everyone is here for personal-life stuff. And that’s cool! Come back tomorrow and we can dunk on some videogames. This is a bit of a downer, so I don’t blame you if you want to scroll elsewhere in your feed in your search for distraction. I kinda need to write this, but you don’t need to read it.<\/p>\n

But if you’re curious how I’m doing, then here it is… <\/p>\n

“End stage renal failure.”<\/p>\n

I knew things weren’t going my way when my kidney doctor said those words to me last week. Last year I discovered<\/a> that my kidneys had been severely damaged by (relatively sudden) high blood pressure. While the prognosis can vary greatly from person to person, I hoped that I could get a few more years out of what was left of my kidneys. But no such luck.<\/p>\n

The symptoms aren’t bad yet, but it’s 100% inevitable now. I’m going to have to rely on some form of kidney dialysis to survive. That process will probably begin in the next couple of months. Barring a transplant, these treatments will need to continue for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n

I’m already feeling the effects of my kidney damage. Most notably, I’m exhausted<\/strong>. All the time. I’m sleeping about 11-ish hours a day. And even when I’m awake, I can feel my brain isn’t working at 100%. I’m ridiculously anemic at this point and I get out of breath just walking up the front steps of my house…<\/p>\n

When we moved in, I was worried these steps would someday be a hardship for my mother. Two years later, she's still fine with them. But they are officially a Big Deal for me.<\/div>
When we moved in, I was worried these steps would someday be a hardship for my mother. Two years later, she's still fine with them. But they are officially a Big Deal for me.<\/div><\/p>\n

The really dangerous symptoms – nausea, weight loss, and heart problems – haven’t started yet. Hopefully I can get on dialysis before I get there.<\/p>\n

I’ve been placed on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. I don’t know how likely this is, but casual searching suggests it’s not terribly likely. According to the Mayo Clinic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The demand for deceased-donor kidneys far exceeds the supply. The waiting list has grown from nearly 58,000 in 2004 to more than 92,000 in 2017.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But then again, I’m quite a bit younger than most people in my position, and I don’t have any additional health problems. This might put me in line ahead of (say) the typical 80-something grandpa with heart problems and a history of cancer. But honestly, I don’t know.<\/p>\n

I could have a run of bad luck and die in the next couple of months. I could live another 5-10 years on dialysis. I could be one of the rare cases that lives for decades on dialysis. I could get a transplant and return to something approximating normal health. Literally anything could happen. All we can be sure of is that something<\/strong> will happen.<\/p>\n

The next couple of months are going to be a bit dicey and unpleasant. Assuming nothing worse happens, then:<\/p>\n

1) My quality of life will go up. (Dialysis should help a lot!)
\n2) My productivity will go down. (Dialysis is ridiculously<\/strong> time-consuming. Like, ~10 hours a week.)<\/p>\n

I was going to tell Paul about this on the Diecast this week, but I chickened out because it’s easier to write this stuff than it is to say it out loud. And since he’s my main collaborator, I felt like he should know. And if I’m going to tell him, then I may as well tell everyone, since I don’t want him to be responsible for keeping my secrets.<\/p>\n

So that’s where I’m at. Sorry for the bad news. Thanks so much for your continued support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know not everyone is here for personal-life stuff. And that’s cool! Come back tomorrow and we can dunk on some videogames. This is a bit of a downer, so I don’t blame you if you want to scroll elsewhere in your feed in your search for distraction. I kinda need to write this, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54058"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54075,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54058\/revisions\/54075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}