Improvement

Our visit to Shands-G'ville today was encouraging. Glenn's labs showed that his kidney function improved again! Now he is on the cusp between stage 4 and stage 5 (renal failure). The oncologist thinks there is something else going on with the kidneys besides the Light Chain Deposition Disease that was damaging his kidneys and that the chemo is what is causing the kidneys to improve the way they are. Glenn is being referred to a nephrologist there at Shands-G'ville for that reason and to get him ready for the dialysis accesses to be done there. That way the accesses can hopefully have time to heal before they have to be used. When Glenn does have to go on dialysis, he can have it done locally, we're pretty sure. We really like, and are very confident in his nephrologist here, but he agrees it wouldn't hurt to get another set of eyes on all this.
Glenn will continue to have chemo every three to four weeks indefinitely and has to stay on steroids as well.  He continues to feel pretty well and his energy level has improved so that he doesn't have to rest most of the day like he used to. We are so retired people: we like to go to the grocery store and we have opinions about which ones we like to go to. We go together everywhere, just about, esp since we are a one-car family now. That has really worked out well. He lets me have a "me-day" whenever I need it to just go off by myself as long as I want for the day.  I find it sooo refreshing to do that. I usually wander around malls and other stores aimlessly, and treat myself to something good to eat. :-)  So it needs to be when we have a few extra dollars. Actually, thinking about it,  I'm about ready for one again.
Got your message, Dr D.S. Thank you for letting me know that you are keeping up with this regularly.
I want all of you to know that your prayers and encouragement have been the reason Glenn is doing so well. So keep up the good work!