Everything's okay in Pamworld

[pjthompson]

Mom came through the procedure well.

Last year she got an MRI showing that the vein leading into her left kidney was blocked so much she needed a stent put in to improve blood flow. Otherwise, the kidney could shut down and her blood pressure could rise high enough to give her a stroke, heart attack. But the problem was her chems were so wacky at that time that it would have been dangerous to do the procedure. So they put her on aggressive b.p. medicine and a healthy diet (although her diet was fairly healthy to begin with) and monitored her closely.

So yesterday when they opened up an artery in the groin and sent the little whirligig swimming upstream they found...that the vein leading into her kidney was so clear that putting in the stent was unnecessary--in fact, there would have been more risk in putting in the stent than leaving it out. It can cause the vein to collapse--although that's rare. The vein to the right kidney was also in pretty good shape. So the bad news is she had a procedure for no reason at all, but the really really really good news is that she's in much better shape than she was a year ago.

Thanks, everyone, for your positive thoughts.