Steve was able to get in for a kidney biopsy on Tuesday, September 13, 2016.  All went normal and according to plan.  A little nausea and killer headache from the anesthesia, but nothing major.

It takes a couple days to get the results from the biopsy and unfortunately the results came back when the nephrologist was out of the country.  The doctor called Steve when he returned (on the 19th) to let him know that the biopsy showed that he had Minimal Change Disease.  

What Minimal Change Disease (MCD)?  Well in non-clinical language, it's a rare kidney disease, that's typically in children, and causes the kidneys to spill protein into urine.  Those proteins are the bodies natural anticoagulant.  So losing all that protein isn't good.

Now, because of Steve's age (remember this is typically in kiddos), the doctor said that there's usually a larger health issue and that MCD  would be the biproduct of it. So more blood work was ordered - to rule out AIDS.  He also had a chest x-ray to rule out lung cancer.  Thankfully both came back negative, but this meant there were no answers and the doctor was puzzled.

More on MCD:
According to UNC School of Medicine, Minimal Change Disease (MCD for short) is a kidney disease in which large amounts of protein is lost in the urine. It is one of the most common causes of the Nephrotic Syndrome worldwide. The kidneys normally work to clean the blood of the natural waste products that build up over time. To do this they have to filter all of the blood in the body many times each day. That is in fact what urine is- filtered blood. Normally, the kidneys can filter this blood without losing any of the proteins that are supposed to remain in circulation. When the kidney filters are damaged, however, protein sometimes “slips through” into the urine. This is called proteinuria.  

You can read the full UNC School of Medicine article on MCD here.