Yearly Tests and Sodium Levels

  On April 30, 2015, we had an appointment with my grandma's primary care provider. She seemed to be in a particularly good mood. She was happy and chipper. When she first walked in, she said hi to us, and then she said, "It looks like you are beating the odds". I thought that was pretty cool of her to say. She asked my grandma how she had been doing, and my grandma told her she was doing fine. She had her get up on the table, with our help, and did a quick exam. She checked her ears, and her throat. Then she put the stethoscope on her back and had her breathe deeply. Everything looked well, and so she had my grandma lay down so she could check out her abdomen. As she felt around, she said, "you still have your baby". I think she has called the tumor that from time to time. When she was done, we helped my grandma sit up, and get down from the table.

  The doctor ordered some annual tests to be done. She wanted us to get them done in June. The doctor asked if we could get them done closer to the beginning of the month, so we could get back in to see her before she goes on vacation. So I took my grandma on June 2nd, to the lab and got her tests done, and then we went out for breakfast. The next day, I called the doctor's office and asked when we should come in for the follow up. The nurse made an appointment for June 11th at 10:45 am.



On June 11th, I took my grandma to her appointment. We got there at 10:41 a.m.. Her appointment was at 10:45 a.m., but they must have been very backed up because we didn't even get called back until 11:10 am. The nurse took us back to the room where we would wait for the doctor. The nurse and another nurse (who I think was in training), took my grandma's blood pressure. The nurse in training wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my grandma's arm, and pushed the button. While that was happening, the other nurse was going over all my grandma's medications with me. She was just making sure that everything was the same, and needed to know if anything had changed. She asked if my grandma had been admitted for any reason to the hospital or taken to the emergency room, or even had any surgeries since the last time she was there. None of that has happened. Meanwhile, the training nurse was having trouble getting a reading on the blood pressure. It came up as an error, so they tried it again together, and the same thing happened again. The nurse told me, she thought it was doing that, because her blood pressure was probably high. She told the nurse in training to go get the wrist monitor. She came back and strapped on the wrist monitor, and this time it worked. However, my grandma's blood pressure came up as 193/63 with a pulse of 51. Her pulse is always about the same. After they got that reading, the nurse put it into the computer and told us the doctor would be in soon.

A little bit later, the doctor came in. She was very pleasant to us. We said our hello's, and then she sat down and asked my grandma how she was doing. My grandma told her she was doing fine. The doctor went over all the test results, and most everything turned out well.

Thyroid
Cholesterol
Blood Sugar
Kidney Function

All of these were good. The only thing that was of concern, was her sodium level. This is something they have been telling us for quite a while now. The doctors kept telling us to limit her fluid intake to 1.5 liters a day. I never knew what to do about it, because I didn't think she ever took in that much fluid in a day anyway. But today, the doctor told me that last time her sodium was 127 and this time it was 128. She said it wasn't a big change but it is something to be aware of. She said we need to try to bring it up because it can start having an affect on her brain. It can make her foggy and confused, and we don't need that. She asked me if anything had changed since last time, and I said no. So she told me we have to include everything that she drinks in a whole day. Last time we saw the doctor, she told us to get my grandma some Boost with glucose control. She wanted my grandma to drink it to boost up her calories, because she doesn't want her to lose too much weight to fast. My grandma is  weighing less each time we go in to the doctor's office. Today, I think she weighed 138. So, the doctor reminded me that we have to include that in the 1.2 liters a day. The doctor didn't have too much to say about her blood pressure being high, so I didn't ask anything about it.

When it was about time to go, the doctor got us another lab slip, because she wants my grandma to get tested again in 4 weeks to see how her sodium levels are. So after she gave us the lab slip, we told her to have fun on her vacation and we left.

When we got home, I started to figure out what we needed to do about this. I looked up what the equivalent to 1.2 liters was. It turns out, it is 5 cups. So, my grandma can only have 5 cups of liquid a day. I also did a quick search on how to increase sodium levels in the blood. I had asked the doctor if there was anything we could give her to help, and she shook her head no. So my search led me to a big long list of thing to try giving her, that might help.

One thing that I have been looking into lately for myself, is gelatin and bone broth. Low and behold, bone broth was mentioned as one thing that would be helpful for raising sodium levels. So for now, I had to come up with a new system for her.

We will try this out, and adjust where we need to later. Hopefully this will help make a difference, and I will continue to do my research to find out what would help. I know there is something out there, I just haven't found it yet.