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Bracketology: Vicki Ivancevic

I first Twitter met vicki a couple of months ago. The Armstrong thing was blowing up. I made a joke

“@kidney_boy: When I need to order Epo, I just tell the nurse to give them a full Armstrong.” I only wish epo worked that well for me
— Vicki Ivancevic (@VIvancevic) January 17, 2013

The story of my frantic run with Lance.

I was a real admirer of Armstrong and I lost countless hours listening to Bob Roll and Phill Liggett as US Postal and then Radioshack preyed on the Peloton in the Alps and Pyrenees  When the myth of Armstrong finally collapsed it stung.

A month later I posted a picture of my dietician’s phosphorous jail. Our unit was having trouble with phosphorous, so our new dietician was throwing some creativity around. If your phos was at goal you got out of Jail, otherwise, you were doing time. In real jail you bust rocks, in our jail your arteries turn to stone.


While not loved by all:

@kidney_boy Phos jail? Seriously? As a pt, I despise being treated like a five year old. But I guess it’s what motivates some, just not me.
— Vicki Ivancevic (@VIvancevic) February 27, 2013

I thought it was valuable to get a patient perspective. It can be hard to motivate patients. Techniques that work for some are pejorative or childlike to others.

The technique seems to be working, our unit numbers are improving.

On a whim I sent Vicki a #NephMadness invitation. No one needed personal invitations to play, but I can see a patient being intimidated by a doctor gag like NephMadness. I was delighted to see her enthusiasm:

@kidney_boy honored you would ask. I tried but will need to really study. I’m just a lowly patient. But I will give it a go!
— Vicki Ivancevic (@VIvancevic) March 20, 2013

With no further ado:

Hello Dr. Topf!

Here are my NephMadness brackets. It was very interesting to read the descriptions of the “teams” on the blog and make the correlations to my experiences with dialysis and my nephrologist (Dr. Hsien-Ta Fang from Edward Medical Group in Naperville, IL). I am going to bring a copy of my bracket to him on my next appointment and see what he thinks 🙂  

I filled out the bracket completely from my experience and what has helped me the most as I have navigated this disease and its treatment options. This is why, for example, I chose EPO as the winner of the Loop of Henle bracket as it is EPO that keeps my hemoglobin in some sort of decent range. And since I have already gotten two calls for a transplant plus had many living donors tests (and unfortunately fail), this is why I chose Transplant as my overall NephMadness champion.

Thank you again for suggesting that I fill this out!

Vicki Ivancevic

And one final bit of VikWhit

@kidney_boy @eajkd my bracket is bleeding more than an infiltrated fistula#nephmadness
— Vicki Ivancevic (@VIvancevic) March 22, 2013