My husband’s new urologist just walked into the room and we must have still had that panicked look on our faces. He kind of giggled and said “Oh don’t worry that is not for you” we just said that we knew that of course like we were not the big dummies that we really are.
He explained that his kidney had little to no blood flow; it was a little smaller than the kidney on the left and it appeared to be a little twisted. He went on to explain that it is a 50 / 50 chance that the kidney coming out would reduce his blood pressure. He is the one that explained to us that the kidney gives off that enzyme that increases blood pressure and that by removing the dead kidney the enzyme production would stop.
If you search on kidney removal there are two very different methods one is extremely invasive and the other is done with hand assisted arthroscopy. The invasive one is where they remove make about a 12 inch incision on the side where the kidney is to be removed. They then remove one of the ribs and take the kidney out. The hospital stay for the invasive technique is about 7- 10 days and 6 weeks out of work. With the hand assisted arthroscopy they do three small incisions on the side where the kidney is going to be removed so they can put their tools in the abdomen. They also do an incision going up and down the belly button area about 6 inches long big enough for the doctor to place his hand in there to grab the kidney and remove it. With this he would be hospitalized 3 – 5 days and then 2 to 3 weeks off recovering.
We are hoping he can do the arthroscopy surgery so that it would be an easier recovery for him. Luckily my husband had not had any abdominal surgery before so the arthroscopy was the option the surgeon was going to do. He wanted to get it set for the soonest opening to hopefully start lowering his blood pressure.
To read more on kidney disease click here