A Swell(ing) Journey Part V

Wednesday brought another road trip to Louisville. This time, it was to have a CT scan with contrast/dye. The previous scans were done without the contrast in an effort to avoid the dye that can be harmful to kidney patients. However, the transplant surgeon felt there was a good chance that the cause of my swelling had not yet been found because no contrast had been used.

So, I spent a 10-hour day in a hospital bed, hooked to an IV, which provided pre-dye and post-dye protection for my kidney. Despite some confusion at the hospital, the scan was completed. I received results today. The good news is, the dye seems to have done nothing bad to my kidney. The crappy, frustrating news is, this test still did NOT reveal any possible cause for the swelling.

At this point, the doctors are consulting and working on other possible causes while I hobble around like an ogre. Someone is supposed to call me Monday to tell me what to do next, which could be to see a urologist. All the “obvious” potential causes have been ruled out. I mentioned “Filariasis” to my transplant nurse during a lengthy phone conversation this afternoon. This is a weird condition I found while searching online that can cause swelling. It occurs when a human gets worms in their lymph nodes. I don’t feel like I have worms, but, hey, who knows what this is? Anyway, the nurse did not seem to think this was very likely. Her response to me: “Matt, get off the internet…now.” I did…except to write this short blog, of course. She is probably right. Upon further inspection, those worms are generally only a problem in tropical countries I’ve never visited. I guess the worms around here are not attracted to lymph nodes.