Today has been an interesting day : FSGS Sucks

I slept till 11am, which was AWESOME (thank you Joacim!!!).  I got up, had a cup of coffee and some cheerios because that's all I thought my stomach could handle.  And I weighed myself this morning, which is something I do only when I notice my clothes fitting differently, and I'm down to 140lbs!!!  That's incredible for me, since I was up to 158 about 3 weeks ago.  I'm sure it's probably not a great sign, and is the combination of not eating and kidney shit.  The Colts game was on, but I knew there were some last-minute things I wanted to pick up, so I ventured out into the cold, and the Sunday before Christmas.

The good thing is that I was pretty much able to finish everything.  The bad news is that I felt like I was going to faint the entire time.  It was a much different feeling than before....if I'd bend down to look at something and then stand up, the world got a little darker, and it's like cotton got stuck in my ears.  It was always temporary, and I just stopped what I was doing and stood there until I regained control of myself.

I haven't felt like this before, but for some reason I thought it'd be a good idea to check my blood pressure when I got home, so I did, and it freaked me out because it was 89/63.  For some, that may be normal, but not for me.  I'm very consistent around 110/80.  I've never recorded a pressure this low.  It started at 4:09pm when I started tracking it, and still how, near 10:0pm, it hasn't changed much.

I've read that eating salt can bring it up again, so that's what I'm doing.  I drank a can of tomato juice, took a bath, and am eating some salty stuff.  I called an ask-a-nurse service, but I feel like when they hear "chronic kidney disease" they nearly instantly send you to the emergency room.  I thought about it, but I DON'T want to spend tonight in the ER or hospital.  They'll probably just give me bags of fluids and tell me I'm dehydrated, and then I'll spend $200 for that, so I think I'll wait it out.  I'm drinking water, eating lots of water-filled veggies, like cucumbers, carrots and tomatoes (because that's about all I can stomach right now).

I read a few interesting things yesterday that explained how/why my appetite has gone off the cliff lately...

Here's a link:  http://kidneytrust.org/learn/symptoms-ckd/

I think we're getting to the Uremia part:

• Skin rash
• Itching
• Nausea and vomiting
• Loss of appetite for meats (protein) - this one explains SO much!
• Metallic taste in the mouth
• Bad “ammonia” breath
• Weight loss (from loss of appetite)

 I've had a really hard time eating protein of any kind.  I tried to cook a nice meal the other day when  co-worker came over, and I could only eat about a 1/4 of it, and this is from the girl who didn't want to labor in a hospital when I was pregnant because I was afraid they wouldn't let me eat!

I'm just hoping that I'm doing the right thing.  It's nearly impossible to know anymore what the "right" thing is.