Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
Resting Comfortably
30 December 2025
I visited Joyce for a couple of hours today, encouraging her to eat her lunch and getting that Ensure Plus on the menu for each meal. Vanessa the RN messaged the doctor (presumably Dr. Holland but who knows) for permission. And since it's the high protein version, it was approved. And she drank it.
But the rest of the lunch was alarmingly light (which prompted me to look for an Ensure). Just a half bowl of tomato soup (with saltines) and a small container of cantalope pieces I cut up smaller for her.
She said she's had trouble swallowing, which was news to me. She didn't seem to have any trouble at lunch but it as mainly liquids, including a juice box.
Vanessa reported her latest lab results, including today's blood tests. Her BUN level (normal is 7-27 mg/dL) came down from 69 yesterday to 46 this morning. And her creatinine (normal <= 1.11 mg/dL) came down from 2.14 to 1.76.
As recently as Nov. 9 when she was at Kaiser South City after her infection, her BUN was 20 and her creatinine was 1.13.
So she's responding to the hydration via IV but she has a way to go yet.
She also had a CR scan of her abdomen and pelvis that revealed mild right hydronenphrosis. It's not a kidney stone but a tiny calcification that will likely dissolve on its own. So it's not an issue for kidney function, apparently.
Lungs, liver, gall bladder, spleen, pancreas, adrenals, GI tract, soft tissues, bones are all clear or normal.
She seems a lot more chipper again, carrying on a conversation and in good spirits. I asked her if she liked this place better or Golden Heights and she said she liked this place better. Especially the nurses. They come around a lot more, she said, and pay attention.
Well, to most things. It was left for me to figure out how to turn the lights on in the room. It was an overcast day but there were no lights on.
I took a peek in the bathroom for a clue. To turn on the bathroom light, you flick the Big Red Switch. There's another Big Red Switch by the room door for a ceiling light in the main room (which is bigger than our living room, dining room and kitchen combined). I'd been afraid to switch that on but clearly Big Red is not a warning.
That left the overhead light over the bed. The reading light. I'd brought Joyce a new novel to read (but forgot her reading glasses). I found a dimmer on the wall that controlled that.
Then I said goodbye before Vanessa could return to do the dressing change.