Dialysis has been about the same and I had blood and platelets on Thursday. Never one to enjoy the status quo, the new thing has been a dreadful headache located on the right side of my head. Take your hand with your fingers spread out and place it over your right ear then think of an imaginary line on the top of your head, this is the area that is affected. I do not think it is a sinus headache because I have had those and it does not feel the same. The left side does not hurt nor does the back of my neck. It is a dull ache but about every 30 seconds a sharp shooting pain goes through that side. It makes me blink and sometimes give off a quite almost silent moan. It is hard not to fear the worse but I am hoping it is an inner ear infection or something simple. It has been a problem since last Wednesday but got worse Thursday evening and I planned to go to my primary care doctor, David Reeve, Friday after dialysis but it went away. It returned on Friday evening, always before the weekend, and has continued so I will go to Dr. Reeve on Monday.

I went to my Dallas nephrologist, Dr. Fenves, last week for an appointment and did get some good news. He is impressed with the way my catheter has preformed. He feels since it has been in for a year that it will perform well for some time to come. He feels with the care the dialysis center has given it and with me keeping it so very clean, the chances of infection are remote. He realizes it must keep performing because of the danger of having to install another one could present problems because of my low platelet count. Even minor surgeries would be major problems for me because of my blood not having the capacity to coagulate. He also does not want to give up on my stem cells and says they could still begin to work. He is so very kind and calls me his miracle lady and always brings an associate into the room for my visits. He tells them of my initial disease (the Waldenstrom) and how very rare it is then on top of that, I have another rare disease (Amyloidosis) and how extremely rare it is to have both. It does not bother me because I keep hoping that one of these young doctors may be the one who finds the reason and cure for my maladies.