Keith N
New Member
- Messages
- 774
- Location
- Lottsburg, VA.
You know most people go through life and take everything for granted. I was one of them until 7 years ago. See thats when my son (Jake) was born, 3 years ago we almost lost him. It all started out with pneumonia my son had. See we live in a rural community so when they sent him to our hospital he had to get a full chest x-ray. When his doctor received the results the x-ray tech noted that she also saw maybe kidney stones. Our doctor said we should go to Richmond, Va. to get a further look and we scheduled an ultrasound. Our doctor got the results and then we were informed Jake had a small kidney and one was not functioning. So we are now scheduled to see a renal specialist to go over these results. Now we are being told of dialysis and future kidney transplants. The doctor then says well lets send you to another hospital and get a better ultrasound to be sure, a hospital he knows and trusts. Friday we get up and make the 1 1/2 hour ride to the hospital for the ultrasound. I can tell you that during that 3 hours the ultrasound tech was going over everything until she reached his kidney area. His right kidney was not looking good. She moved down below his stomach and then we hear "huh" she found his kidney down there. Now comes a flurry of phone calls and appears the chief radiologist to look for himself. You always know something isn't going well when they stop using basic terms and go more scientific to discuss. After a few minutes he leaves and comes back, we are now scheduled for a CT scan right now and we have to go up stairs and will be escorted. As we were being led down the hall I happened to look down a corridor to my right and noticed our specialist and his crew are here from across town. Two things are in my mind and I tell my wife 1. no way in a hospital of this size do you just go right up for a CT and 2. If the doctor was told to come across town I said "something isn't right". We then proceeded to go up to CT and after an hour we were escorted to a conference room. In the room is about 30 doctors with the CT results projected on the wall. When we first were pregnant with Jake the blood work came back looking like we had twins but then it streamlined down and when we did our first ultrasound Jake was the only fetus. It appears the other twin was absorbed or they call it parasitic twin, or fetus in fetu. Our operating doctor was in video conference as well, see he was in Rio doing a lecture in his home country. We were told he would fly back Sunday, get over jet lag on Monday and we were in surgery Tuesday. They removed a tumor the size of a cantaloupe out of Jake which was 6 inches long. We have been through a wonderful journey in life and have met a wonderful group of people working everyday to help people. Nothing in life is a given and there are times when parents outlive children. Not a day goes by that we are not doing something as a family. Sometimes life will walk up to you and slap you in the face to make you wake up and realize to get out there and try get out of the rut that some people live in. Sometimes it happens more than once, Its how we take the challenge that makes us better people. Believe me life is not a given and life has slapped us a few times more than we would like but we make life what it is and live it to the fullest as long as we are allowed to live. Take care everyone
