Cup of Brown Joy

 We are having rain and snow today, so I feel like crap, meaning I'm not in a good enough mood to do a proper tea review.  Also forecast for rain and/or snow tomorrow, so I suspect it's going to be Friday before I start reviewing teas again.  Think I'm going to go through the 20ish flavored teas I have, then start with the black and pu'erh teas I've got.  That should take a couple of months, after which I should have bought some more.  :-) 

 I'm planing on starting up tea reviews on Wednesday this week, after I get some sugar.  I've got quite a back log of teas to review, some flavored tea, but a lot of straight black and pu-erh teas.  I'm looking forward to doing reviews again!

I've been given the go ahead to drink "several" cups of tea a day, however I've been told that I need to balance the tea with water.  So I'll be starting doing tea reviews "soon", possibly as soon as next week.

 Just got of the phone with the kidney specialist.  I have an appointment the 31st of March.  Less than thrilled about it being that far out, but I can live with it.

 I've done a little Googling and it seems that the view that tea is a problem for some one with kidney disease is mixed.  I'm going to keep to my 2 cup of "real" tea per day until I get told one way or the other about 4-6 cups a day.  My primary care person did tell me to increase fluid intake, which means I'm doing a lot more decaf tea than I was.  They are supposed to get me a consult with a kidney specialist some time this week.  Problem with that is there isn't one in town and I really don't have transport other than friends. Deal with that if and when it comes up.

 I just got bad news (not really bad, but possibly bad).  My kidney function went down (to 54 from 59), not up with the latest blood test.  So, I'm still restricted to 2 cups of tea a day.  She also wants me to increase my fluid intake.  That might be tricky.  Looking for a local consult to talk to a specialist about it. I don't feel any thing wrong and it's above the real danger point, just it's irritating to not be able to drink my normal stuff. I'm at stage 3a,  see here for what that means   At my age I should have GFR of 85 or there abouts, which is why my primary care person is not happy. I don't have any of the risk factors, ( diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, or a family history of kidney failure.) so this sorta came out of the blue when it was reported last year.  I was 3b then.