Children's Hospital Check Up

This morning we had another round of testing for Samantha's kidney @ Nationwide Children's Hospital. The above picture was in the waiting room of her first test...an ultrasound.

Here is Samantha and her daddy during her ultrasound. Even though this test is painless she really hated having to be held down. She was trying to get off the table any way she could. But it is a pretty quick test so it was not too bad. After this test we went over to "Fluro" for her VCUG. While we were in the waiting room I fed her a bottle and she was in a decent mood. Going without a morning nap is never good for her mood but she did better than I expected. There were lots of new things for her to look at and kept her occupied.

For the VCUG they had us put her in a little baby medical gown. I know this is crazy but she did look really cute in it. The bright yellow color brought a little sun shine to a non-ideal situation. Here she was holding my hands while checking out her nurse. He was an older man with white hair and a white beard / mustache. I think he reminded her of Santa and her Uncle Keith! She really liked him and even held her arms out to him for him to pick her up...which he did. I think he really made her more comfortable with the whole situation.

Here is Samantha right after they put the numbing gel on her "stuff". That is so when they put the catheter in she will not really feel it. And she really did not seem to mind...still in a good mood at this point.

The VCUG test is basically where they fill her bladder up as full as it will go with a contrast dye to see if she has reflux back into her kidney. Imagine having to pee so bad and not being able to go. But she really tolerated it surprisingly well. She had a little bit of a worried look on her face but that was as bad as is got until the test was over. They don't like to just pull the catheter out, they want her to virtually pee it out, but she did not want to pee. Even with her bladder being totally full she was trying to hold it all in. So they dripped warm water on her "stuff" to encourage her and after a little water she emptied herself all out. The odd thing about that is we could still see her bladder on the screen and as she was peeing we could see her bladder empty on the screen.

After the VCUG we went up to the Pediatric Urology department to meet with her urologist. The above picture was her playing in the waiting room. When we finally met with the doctor he confirmed that Kidney 2 (lower right kidney) has grown out of the reflux! HOORAY!!! **If I don't celebrate the small victories I will go crazy.** So she is going to have to have surgery in a couple months. But because the reflux is gone the surgery is going to be easier than it would have been if she still had the reflux...another HOORAY! This surgery will take about 3 hours then she will spend another 2-3 hours in recovery before we will be able to see her. But the doctor said he will give us hourly updates so we will not be in the dark. She will have to have a breathing tube and an IV. Then they will make 3 small incisions, one in her belly button and one on the top of her belly and one below. The camera will go in the incision in her belly button and the little tools with go in the other two. They will reroute some of her plumbing, put a stint in then close her back up. She will have to spend at least one night in the hospital and then will come home. But she will have a catheter in for a week post-op. Then we go back after that week and they take out her catheter. I know this is a lot of steps, but after that we have to go back to the hospital 3 weeks later to have the stint taken out. She will have to be put under again to have this taken out and will have to spend the night at the hospital again. I still cannot wrap my head around all this yet. Even though I know exactly what is going to happen I still cannot put all the pieces together.