When you have sick kids, it can be hard to decide what foods they should eat and drinks they should drink when sick, especially if the child is a picky eater, at a challenging age or has allergies. (fb)

In January 2019, Alison Snortheim experienced extreme leg pain when walking, loss of appetite, severe muscle weakness and vomiting. On January 28, she went to the emergency department at Marshfield Medical Center in Marshfield, where she received a life-changing diagnosis: kidney failure. At the time of diagnosis, Alison was pregnant. Alison’s pregnancy masked some of her symptoms, leading to a late diagnosis of kidney failure. “Kidney failure symptoms can mimic morning sickness,” said Dr. Rebecca Blonsky, Marshfield Clinic Health System nephrologist. “When kidney toxins start to build up, they cause fatigue, nausea, vomiting and general malaise, but, pregnancy can cause the same things.” Initially, her symptoms were attributed to pregnancy and more common conditions were ruled out, but she returned to the emergency department when they worsened. Dr. Clint McKee, emergency medicine physician, recognized her symptoms weren’t just pregnancy-related. Her care team found she was in renal (kidney) failure with life-threatening hyperkalemia, or high blood potassium. Dr. Blonsky then performed a kidney biopsy and diagnosed Alison with anti-glomerular basement membrane (anti-GBM) disease, a rare kidney disease. Anti-GBM causes the body to see the kidney as foreign and make antibodies against it, attacking and destroying the working parts of the kidney (glomeruli), causing kidney failure. “These tend to be diagnosed later, as renal failure symptoms are non-specific and can be confused for things like morning sickness. The antibodies attack all the glomeruli at the same time. It can be very difficult to treat damage to the working parts of the kidney,” said Dr. Blonsky. The first step was saving Alison and her baby. Alison was placed on emergency dialysis to prevent her heart from stopping due to high potassium levels. Dr. Blonsky and the nephrology team then worked very closely with the high-risk obstetric team and Alison’s obstetricians to ensure her baby could grow normally. “She had to undergo dialysis treatments six days a week. Kidney toxins build up between treatments, which is normally fine, but for a fetus trying to grow, it makes it much harder to grow and be healthy. So, pregnant dialysis patients need more dialysis to prevent too much buildup,” said Dr. Blonsky. Due to her late diagnosis, Alison needed a kidney transplant. Her labs showed high levels of antibodies against the kidneys. Her providers performed plasmapheresis, a therapy that tries to remove the antibodies from the blood, and gave her immunosuppression to help her kidneys get better. The working parts that clean and filter the blood in Alison’s kidneys were severely damaged due to anti-GBM disease. Despite these therapies to remove the harmful antibodies, the damage to Alison’s kidneys was too severe. Due to the irreversible damage, Alison received her first transplant in September 2020, which failed within six months. However, Alison received a second kidney in January 2024. “My transplant team is happy with the outcome of my most recent transplant and I am grateful to be alive,” she said. Read more about how Alison and Owen are doing now by clicking through the photos. (fb)