Tag: Blood Tests

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Colonoscopy Tomorrow – Not for me


My wife, Michelle,  has been having a lot of stomach problems over the last few months and diarrhea very often. The problem tends to be in the afternoon with my wife having terrible stomach cramps most afternoons.

We have tried lots of stuff including trying probiotics in case it was a bacteria problem, blood tests, urine test, poo testing. Lots of tests and lots of questioning on both my wife and I on what could be causing these problems. We have looked all over her diet and exercise program thinking that this could be a milk allergy or gluten allergy but after taking these out we realized that my wife may have a problem with lactose in milk and other dairy products so she took all milk related products out of her diet, Gluten tests showed that was really not an issue.

So now we are getting ready for the next test. Tomorrow morning my wife is going in for a Colonoscopy to see if there is some kind of problem with her intestines, colon, or bladder. This is not a comfortable test to get ready for and probably not comfortable tomorrow either, we will see about that.

Getting Ready for a Colonoscopy

Colonoscopy Tomorrow Not for me

Michelle and the Kids

So the prep for the Colonoscopy started a few days ago. Michelle had to drop her daily aspirin (she takes this for blood clot issues she had a few years ago) on Thursday which was 5 days before and anti-inflammatory 3 days before. Now this weekend Michelle had to go to low fiber diet for three days and now today after breakfast no solid foods at all.

For the Colonoscopy tomorrow my wife has to have a completely clear colon so that the camera can see the walls of the colon very clearly and with no obstructions this means that Michelle needs to completely flush her colon for tomorrow morning. To clear the colon she had to take Ducolax pills on Saturday and Sunday nights and then today she needs to take Pico Salax twice tonight and drink 12-16 cups of water between 5pm and midnight. Right now the poor girl is alternating floating from all the water and sitting on the toilet.

I am looking forward to finding out tomorrow if we can get an answer to my wifes problems. She has never had any kind of stomach problems like this and we are both confused as it doesn’t make any sense to either of us. As I am sure you know from my posts here I find confidence within myself that I can find the answers to any health and fitness problems so this last few months have driven me crazy.

I will post tomorrow if we find out anything on this, or probably any news actually.

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Weight Loss Exercise

Crossmatch Day




My daughter and I went to the hospital today for blood tests. Not an uncommon occurance for my daughter who gets tested monthly but I don’t have quite as much experience.

But today is a special day for us.

My daughters kidneys have been stable at 27-30% GFR for the last couple months but we all know that her nephronophthisis that my wife and I gave her through a couple bad genes is going to lead to kidney failure likely within a year.

After all the tests that I have gone through to test my health and especially my kidney health and output I have finally been deemed a good candidate if…. if… my blood is a good match with Taylors.

Taylor and Billy doing a Crossmatch

So today Taylor and I drove down to the hospital and each of us had a few vials of blood taken and then after this the transplant people will mix them together. We are both O Positive but for my kidney to be transplanted we need to do this crossmatch to find out if the mix of our blood is going to be a problem for a transplant.


If the crossmatch determines that we are a good match still then we wait and continue to let Taylor’s kidney function to drop further to about 15% and then we can get a transplant done.

Right now Taylor, at 30% kidney function is still a healthy and somewhat active kid. She plays, she runs around laughing, and fights with her brother, but she does get tired and misses school as well. The trouble with kidney disease in kids is that it often does not outwardly manifest but in Taylors case she does get tired and sick way more often then her brother does.

Yesterday our son Jaiden got blood tests done to check how his Creatinine levels are. Since we know that my wife and I are carriers for these bad genes we also know that each kid has a 25% chance to get the kidney disease that Taylor has so we are quietly holding our breath that Jaiden is good.

So always more drama around our house but as time goes on the murky picture of family health is getting a bit clearer