spoken for

For lack of better title…

K had her renal scan today, and what a day it was. We arrived at 11:15am. I’d skipped breakfast because I was in a hurry… I would live to regret that. Her appointment wasn’t until noon, but they wanted me to arrive at 11:30 for check-in. So, of course, I was early, and they were behind schedule. Surprise, surprise. I waited a bit, taking the time to feed Hungry Girl, then they checked us in and we go back to the waiting room. About ten after noon, some lady comes back to tell me it will probably be another 15 minutes, they’re running behind. Annnnnnd before I can stop her, this woman grabs my baby’s hand and starts oogling about how cute she is and rubbing her under one cheek. Of course, K is just eating up the attention and sitting there smiling and making noises. As soon as that woman left, out with the baby wipes to wipe any germs off. Sounds insane, but it’s what I’ve gotta do.

The woman 3 seats down from me was polite, however, she asked if she could look. So she came and looked from a decent distance and didn’t try to touch. I appreciated that. She was called away and another woman took the seat 2 down from me. She was wearing a surgical mask over her face, sort of had it pulled down. Immediately she’s talking to the woman across the aisle, of sorts, a very vocal woman who had been ranting about how long she’d been there, for one. She walked in right before I did, so I had been there just as long. She’s talking about her kid, saying he’s had some infection or something and they’ve had to drain fluid. I’m not paying attention, I was working on Sarah’s scarf (crochet), until I hear the words, “and I don’t know how contagious he is.” I tell you what, I didn’t need a mirror to know what my face looked like. I looked right at her with this utter shock then pulled my kid (in the stroller) closer to me and inched into the corner, lol. And at this, Surgical Mask says, “oh they got these masks up there, they’re so hard to breathe in though.” When I inched away, I guess she got the message, she put the mask on all the way and moved down another seat.

I mean… THINK A LITTLE PEOPLE. Gosh, it’s a friggin children’s hospital. You know you’re going to be surrounded by kids and babies. If you think you’re contagious or that your kid is, take some precautions instead of just joining everyone else.

Anyway… at least another 15 minutes later they took us back. I was not prepared for the long visit, first the waiting and then, “…it will take about an hour and a half…” I apparently still have Pregnancy Brain, I completely forgot they were going to have to give K an IV for this. I was still thinking of the test she had when in the NICU that was just a catheter.

However, despite there being two of them and my helping hold K down and doing my best to keep her calm, it still took about a half an hour to do the IV. Poor little baby. It’s so traumatic when you don’t know why things are happening, “WHY is there this pain in my hand?” Not to mention, it took two tries. They couldn’t get it in her left hand and ended up getting it in the arm. And not to mention, it always hurts worse when you tense up.

The poor little thing calmed down when that was over and she actually got to a happy place and was laying there “talking” up a storm, cooing and just plain being all happy. Then came the catheter. She screamed just as bad for this, maybe worse. It also took two tries. They had to call in someone else for this one. Poor poor little baby. When that was all done and she was ready to go, they strapped her down with these velcro straps. Pretty much all she could do was turn her head and wiggle her toes. They slid her in to the x-ray machine. I was able to give her a bottle as she lay there but she didn’t take much. She didn’t like being strapped down at first but she started to just look around and after a little bit fell off to sleep.

They ran some dye through her IV so they could watch on the computer screen what her kidneys would do as far as draining. This test went for 20 minutes. After that, it was sent up to the doctors who then decided that, yes, they wanted her to get the second one. So a doctor came in and gave K a diuretic then ran the test for another 25 minutes.

When all of that was said and done, she was slid out of the machine and that woke her up. Then it was time to unhook everything from her. I swear, she cried and screamed the most for removing the IV. Poor baby didn’t like the catheter being removed either but at least that was done very quickly. It was funny, too, that the little stinker managed to have a poopy diaper through all this. She’d had a lot of tape for her IV though so removing that was not fun and she ended up with a very sticky arm and blood on her sleeve.

While they sent the results to the doctors to review, I had a chance to run to the cafe since I hadn’t eaten yet. It was after 3 before I got down there and even then I had to stand by the sandwich counter forever while three guys ignored me, though they knew I was there. Finally I got some food and scarfed it before heading to the office.

Then, it was more waiting. Finally, though, the doctor came and he felt her kidneys, he said that even through all that and the fact that I’d fed her half a bottle again after her tests, he couldn’t feel that her kidneys were hard. Apparently this is a really good thing. He then showed me the images and explained how, and here is what it has taken me forever to say: K does not need surgery!!

The kidney that is bigger and holds more fluid apparently still functions at 47%. Sounds bad, but that’s 47 out of 50. The other kidney picks up that remaining 3% for a total of 53%. In other words, from what I understand, it means that the larger kidney functions perfectly fine, it’s just a little slower than the other. If you remember back to when she was in the NICU when they did the initial tests to see how the reflux was, the doctor there told me that he pegged that kidney to be at 10 to 15% functional. It’s nice sometimes, when doctors are wrong! But back to her children’s urologist, he believes that at least a big part of this is caused by the reflux up into that kidney. Apparently her ureter is quite twisted and kinked. He believes that both refluxes are grade 3′s instead of one being a 5, and that both will fix themselves within a few years. From what I understand, the area of the kidney that holds the fluid in the large kidney can get better as the reflux fixes itself and the ureter straightens out. He said there is a very low chance that K would need surgery. The only reason she should need surgery is if her reflux doesn’t start to fix itself. They’re going to follow her with periodic ultrasounds and she might have to have another renal scan in 12 to 18 months. So she’ll go back in December for an ultrasound and hopefully over time we will see improvement in the reflux.

I cannot say just how awesome this is, though. That little girl has been through so much in her short life so far, I am really glad she doesn’t need surgery. Of course, she will stay on the daily antibiotic to ward off infections until this clears up, but that’s nothing compared to surgery. I don’t mind going in so often for ultrasounds, either. :)