Subject: chronic urinary tract infections

[Guest guest]

Mom did a stint in the hospital with a kidney infection that we detected

because she was bleeding heavily from the urinary tract... her leg bag

looked like a pint of blood instead of urine! It terrified us because it

started so suddenly and she was losing so much blood.

Anyway, test revealed a very large (10 cm) staghorn kidney stone occupying

the top half of her right kidney. The Uro said that a healthy person would

have surgery to remove either the stone or the whole kidney because the

stone is porous and now certainly is saturated with the infection and there

is no way to get rid of it. He put mom on a maintenance antibiotic, knowing

that the infection will still break through from time to time. It's a

gamble, but the lesser of two evils at this point. When the infection

flared up again she got a ten day round of Cipro and then went back to the

maintenance drug.

In about a week, we will celebrate mom's one year anniversary in hospice

care. Seems like a funny thing to celebrate, doesn't it?

[Guest guest]

Mom did a stint in the hospital with a kidney infection that we detected

because she was bleeding heavily from the urinary tract... her leg bag

looked like a pint of blood instead of urine! It terrified us because it

started so suddenly and she was losing so much blood.

Anyway, test revealed a very large (10 cm) staghorn kidney stone occupying

the top half of her right kidney. The Uro said that a healthy person would

have surgery to remove either the stone or the whole kidney because the

stone is porous and now certainly is saturated with the infection and there

is no way to get rid of it. He put mom on a maintenance antibiotic, knowing

that the infection will still break through from time to time. It's a

gamble, but the lesser of two evils at this point. When the infection

flared up again she got a ten day round of Cipro and then went back to the

maintenance drug.

In about a week, we will celebrate mom's one year anniversary in hospice

care. Seems like a funny thing to celebrate, doesn't it?