If it's not healthy, it's not green.

Wilkie Wages War: December 2006

3 August 2011 4,223 views No Comment

Wilkie Wages War: December 2006

Environmental Health Network leader Barbara Wilkie discovered in July 2005 that her chemical injury/multiple chemical sensitivities had suddenly manifested as stage 4 (later stage 5) kidney disease (kidney failure). Despite dire warnings of death within a year, she eschewed dialysis and Western Medicine drugs and took a route of alternative medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and strict dietary changes. She lived well for six years, far beyond the doctors’ predictions. Barb died at home, surrounded by friends and family, on May 31, 2011.

During this time, Barb documented her journey. From diagnosis through June 2008, she created one huge website page packed with details, plus some side documents on diet and other topics. We have divided these works into smaller pieces, by date or topic, to make it easier to read and find things. For dates after June 2008, we have letters, online posts, and other documents.

Barb intended her work to be read and used. We hope this presentation will help you do just that.

Wilkie Wages War on Kidney Disease
(aka Renal Disease or Failure)

OR, AS I SEE IT: Life with yet another facet of living with MCS.
I want to live life while dying.

December 2006 . . .

High or Low	Blood checked for	Reading is:	What should be:
H	BUN	46 . . . Another welcomed, albeit tiny, drop!.(blood, urea, nitrogen – from the breakdown of protein. BUN increases as kidney function decreases.)	10 – 20 mg/dL
H	Magnesium	2.5 . . . A tad high! Maybe that’s why I had cramping limbs in November. Eating fiber, as well as trying to stay away from magnesium-rich foods, is a way to bring that back into range. As I understand it, too much magnesium can adversely affect heart just as can too much potassium.	1.7 -2.3 mg/dL
L	Calcium	8.4 . . . A bit of a drop, now a tad below normal.	8.5 – 10.3 mg/dL
L	CO2	18 . . . . Even a little lower than last month . . . wonder why.	24 – 33 mEq/L
H	Creatinine	4.7 . . . Down a little more . . .now this is in the right direction, and although it is still way too high, it is the first time since spring that I’ve been this low.	<1.2 mg/dL
H	Phosphorus	5.0 . . . That’s still too high, but down a tad, but how to pull that into normal???? I still haven’t figured that one out. I haven’t eaten a lot of fish this month. Oh, but I have had a few pieces of pickled herring . . . maybe I shouldn’t allow myself that treat despite the fact that that’s been a year-end tradition since infancy.	2.7 – 4.5 mg/dL
	Potassium	5.0 . . . Up a little, but still normal. This is very good news.	3.5 – 5.3 mEq/L
	Sodium	133 . . . Up to normal. That’s a yeah! Funny how good a normal anything looks.	133 – 145 mEq/L
L	GFR *	10 or 12 . . . still have muscle mass so I’ll take the 12! Of course, this is based only on the creatinine reading, so IF for any reason that’s off, so then is the GFR. The larger number is assigned to African-American women, as they are seen as having more muscle mass than caucasians. You can see how “painting with a broad brush” can cause errors. White women aren’t supposed to have muscle mass? Ridiculous! My ethnic origins were quite muscular.	>59 mL/min
L	Hemoglobin	8.6 . . . A big drop. Where are my miracles?	11.5 – 15 g/dL
L	Hematocrit	26.6 . . Another big drop. What happened? I’ve no clue. I was hopeful last month that my kidneys started producing at least a little erythropoietin, now I wonder. (Erythropoietin is a hormone that is produced by healthy kidneys, which in essence tells the brain to tell the bone marrow to produce the necessary red blood cells. Kidney failure means failure of the production of red blood cells, hence anemia. When one’s red cell counts get too low, one doesn’t get the oxygen delivered to all the organs . . . doctors have an artificial way of stimulating that hormone. I’m trying to handle all this without drugs as long as possible.	34 – 46 %
L	CBC	28.5 . . Haven’t had this complete blood count checked for quite a while, but if follows suit with the hemoglobin and hematocrit readings being a little low.	3.6 – 5.7
Negative and trace	Urine	Protein, negative. Just a trace of blood, which could be OK, or . . . .??? No ranges before me, just word via phone call. But I’ve not had negative protein since all of this began. Maybe washing my meat has had a good effect on this as well as the drops in creatinine and BUN. Or, maybe the EI doctor is correct, when he says he believes, with support, any body organ can heal. As I’m wont to say: Time will tell. But in the meantime, I’m working at healing and thanks to a fine team, I’m still feeling great.