Valentine's Day 2013, we received a call from my husband's nephrologist. A week earlier we had no idea what a nephrologist was. And doctors don't typically call with biopsy results the next day. Something wasn't right.
It began when our new family doctor ran a comprehensive series of tests on all his new patients. My husband turned out to have an extremely high protein count in his urine. We were referred to a nephrologist to discover why, not for a minute imagining anything seriously wrong with him.
The nephrologist was also at a loss to explain the dramatically climbing protein count and planned a kidney biopsy the day before Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day, we got the call. My husband had been diagnosed with an extremely rare blood disorder called amyloidosis, AL amyloidosis in particular.