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March Madness - R.I.P. Xterra

As if this month wasn't busy enough (possible complete life change from house dad to working father, daughter in the hospital...), there was a huge problem with ice this morning on the freeway. Apparently everyone BUT the state decided it was a good idea to salt with the surprise snow last night, so the Interstate was left unsalted, and completely iced over; but they had ALL NIGHT to figure it out. I believe I'll be filing a claim on this one, blatant neglect. In any case, my wife hit an ice patch on a bridge, had no control, went into the center media, and because of the guardrail there, rolled it over. She called me at 6 am to say she rolled the Xterra and was fine. She really was fine, too except for some mild shock. Just a little soreness from the seatbelt. It was a very calm roll-over. So the vehicle is totaled, we believe. It was ("was" ... funny I should say that already), IS 10 years old and has 150k miles on it, so it has served us well. Michel was rather attached to the vehicle.

Unfortunately the police had it towed before I could get there and take pics of it inverted(I discovered this when I called the tow truck driver who reported that it wasn't there anymore).

So... yeah... interesting.

We spent the evening "decompressing" by sitting on the couch with our laptops eating sweets and investigating what her next car will be. Surprisingly, Michel is looking a LOT at the Audi A3 Quattro! (Yay me!) We're not looking at new, but used, '06 models as they're a bit cheaper, but still pricey. Another option is the Nissan Rogue and Murano, a bit cheaper, and less cool, but will serve our needs.

This email was waiting in my inbox, sent at about the same time I was trying to get the right police on the phone (apparently this stretch of the I-675 isn't supported by the Highway patrol, but by SEVEN different local police forces...). This is between two folks discussing my potential hire:

[hr]
Andrew,
Thanks for sending. I'm thinking these new rated civilian positions may be
a fit.
Thanx,


Jon

-----Original Message-----
Subject: candidate for civilian hire

Jon,
Here is the resume for Jon Allain we discussed earlier. Jon may be sending
an updated resume soon.

Please consider.

Thanks!
[hr]

the pics:




Here's the road surface even 2 hours later, still no salt, still a ton of ice, cars still going off everywhere. Shortly after this picture the first salt truck went by on the OTHER side. You can still see her tire tracks in the ice!



Here's where she hit the guardrail and rolled, going backwards:

Abigail is coming home!

Hospital pics

I will update this as I get more pictures here at the hospital
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v314/glyph_99es/Abigail%20Hospital%202010/

Still in the hospital. Need 24 hrs with fever less than 100.4. She has reflux in the urine system. May need surgery. Waiting on urologist for more info

This will now be updated again!

For some recent to not-so-recent pics, at least from my cell phone, check out my photobucket collection. These are from 2008 til now.

Long email = blog entry

Here’s the long story:

LESSON LEARNED: If you find yourself in an emergency room, needing various tests, and it looks like you won’t be home for a while, do yourself a favor and grab a pen or pencil and some paper. Document EVERYTHING that is done – what test, what time, what result, the time you got the results, etc. Because when you’ve been up all night, been to two emergency rooms and one regular room, and through several tests, you aren’t going to remember what time you learned what. Especially if the clock in your room is off!

 

THE WHOLE STORY: Before you read the whole story, I’d ask that you not retell the details to other children. Mostly, because it’s embarrassing to Abigail and it is her choice to tell other people, not mine. She doesn’t mind the adults knowing (yes, I asked first), but doesn’t want other kids to know all the details – especially the ct scan part. Adults won’t make fun of her the way kids might.

 

So what happened? I’m not sure what Jonathan has shared, so if some of this may be repeat info. The doctors still aren’t 100% positive of the source (the what), and even less positive of the cause (the how).

 

Saturday night: She started having a fever Saturday night. Nothing overly concerning at that time, just a sick kid. She didn’t eat much for dinner, either – just a few rolls and some juice (we were at a party).

 

Sunday: Sunday morning, her fever had reached 103.5, and she was saying she hurt – headache and pain in her right side, just below her ribs. Clearly, we weren’t going to church that morning. She stayed in her pjs all day, I made a fire and made a little bed for her so she could lay in front of the fire and rest, and hopefully get better. We had to really push her to eat, a couple of fried eggs and a few bites of hot cereal. She stayed laying there all day, and I gave her ibuprofen a couple of time to help with her headache. That afternoon she tried to roll over, and cried out in pain. Her side hurt – a lot. Okay, now I’m concerned that this isn’t a normal kid-got-sick event, we are dealing with something a little more serious. My thought: appendicitis. I look up the symptoms. Fever – yes. Nausea, vomiting – no. Loss of appetite – yes, she hadn’t had anything else to eat that day, and only about 8 ounces of water over the whole day. Pain in the right side – yes. Appendicitis is time-sensitive, so waiting until Monday to make an appointment at the clinic for who knows when is out of the question. We have to visit an emergency room. We go to the emergency room at Kettering Hospital, not the closest one to our house, but a better hospital than the one that’s closest. It’s not terribly busy, we’re seen in due time. She gets an adult-sized gown, but she can keep her pants on, so it’s not that big of a deal. She has a fever, somewhere over 103, (yeah, I knew that!) and they do blood and urine tests. She hasn’t peed all day, since the morning, so she’s dehydrated. They start an IV, using it first to take blood, then to deliver fluids. She does manage to pee, and the urine is clean (no urinary tract infection (UTI)) but the blood shows abnormally high white blood cell count. We’re told that normal/healthy is 10,000, and a person with an elevated count - say, someone with appendicitis - has about 15,000. Abigail has twice that, over 30,000. The doc thinks it MAY be appendicitis, but the lack of vomiting, the way the pain just came on suddenly, not gradually, and remained in one spot, rather than starting in the middle and moving to the side, as typically happens in appendicitis, and the location – it’s a little high, just under the ribs – and the freakishly high white blood cell count made him think it could well be something else. He called Dayton Children’s hospital, they said check for pneumonia. She isn’t really coughing, but just in case. We do x-rays. Her lungs are clean. No pneumonia. Her temperature is monitored, and it comes down to normal, so they did a second blood test, and the count was down, but only just: 24,600. We pray over her. We are transferred to Dayton Children’s thinking there’s an appendectomy in our near future, as we’re told appendicitis is still most likely.

 

Sunday night into Monday morning: The rooms at Kettering’s emergency department are spacious, clean, bright, and updated. The rooms at Dayton Children’s are not. They are cramped, dark, dirty, and clearly have been around for a while. We get there around 2200 or so. We drove Abigail there, and stopped at Chipotle to pick up dinner for the rest of us on the way. Anticipating a surgery, Abigail was not allowed to have anything to eat or drink. Dayton Children’s is about 15 minutes from our house, so it’s not far. They were expecting us, and had a room waiting. Abigail got an adult-sized hospital gown (again! At the children’s hospital?) and they take her temperature, blood pressure, and all that. Her temperature starts to rise again. The doc there (who spoke with the doc from Kettering) is not convinced it’s appendicitis, but clearly there’s something going on in there that’s not right. They only gave us paper copies of the x-rays, so we repeated the x-rays, this time doing one for the belly as well. Jonathan talked to one of the technicians and the guy was able to get a child-sized gown for her to wear (what a concept!). Now we wait for the radiologist to look at the x-rays, as well as a surgeon. Abigail is kind of hungry, but she’s really thirsty. She’s crying because she can’t have anything to drink. She gets some Tylenol for her headache, which she gets to take with water: she was thrilled to get water, even if it was only 3 sips. We got a little pushy with the staff and said she needs to get back on the IV drip now. They complied. After a couple of hours watching her temperature rise, getting her back on IV fluids, and knowing that we’ve got a lot of waiting ahead, Jonathan and Balen head home (thanks to Bobby Hart for coming to pick them up after midnight, so I could keep a vehicle with me!). By the way, Balen was really well-behaved through all of this. Considering he just turned 4, and small children aren’t known for their patience, he did really well entertaining himself, not demanding attention constantly, and obeying us when he was told not to touch this or that, not to go here or there. Thank you, God, for such an easy child!

 

Monday morning for us: The x-rays aren’t showing anything interesting, so the doctor orders a ct scan, which was by far the worst part of this whole ordeal for Abigail. She peed in a cup no problem at Kettering (no help from Mommy needed there). For this scan, since they really wanted to highlight the appendix, she required contrast fluid. Some of that fluid was put into her IV. Most of it had to go directly into the bowels, via the backdoor. This isn’t a brief discomfort, either, like taking blood. This takes about 30 minutes. She has to keep the tube in, and lay first on one side, then her stomach, then the other side, so that the fluid can pass around all the twists, turns, and corners that make up the intestinal tract. The scans themselves are easy – she just has to lay still and hold her breath for a few seconds. Poor girl – by this time it was about 0200, she has a fever again, she’s shaking, and crying, asking when it’ll be over. The scans are finally complete, and what fluid can be drained is, then the tube comes out, and she goes to the bathroom to expel more fluid. She feels better after that, but is still pretty shaken. A bit later they ask for a urine sample, a clean catch this time. I go with the nurse who says “Mom, you’ve done this before, maybe she’ll be more comfortable with you helping her.” So Abigail, her IV fluids, and I go in a bathroom. Good thing there’s room for all of us. I help her open the wipes, tell her what she needs to do, monitor that she’s doing it properly. I take the lid off the cup and hold it out to her. She takes it. I wait. She appears to be waiting patiently, standing up though, not yet trying to pee. “Well, go ahead, pee in the cup!” I say. A complete change comes over her face. She is now wearing outrage on her face, completely incensed at the thought of going pee in a cup in front of her mother. She just points to the door and shouts “OUT!” Her face doesn’t change. I’m surprised, amused, proud, and teensy bit sad, all at once. My little girl…not so little anymore. “Okay, okay, I’ll go!” I wait outside the bathroom. She calls to me in a bit. She doesn’t need to pee, though she did get rid of more fluid from the back side. I tell the nurse, who tells me the next step is a catheter. Hmm. Abigail does not know what I catheter is, but I’m sure that if I explain it, she’ll find that she indeed needs to pee. I tell her. Two minutes later, her cup is filled. Now we wait for results. This test also show no UTI. The ct scans are read by a radiologist, the surgeon, and a urologist – they found something in her right kidney. We’re initially told it’s an abscess – a closed off collection of bacteria that has taken up residence in her kidney. They admit her to the hospital proper to start antibiotics and monitor her condition. We move from the dingy emergency to the much more roomy, much more comfortable 3^rd floor. There are two wings to the third floor: east and west. Typically, kids needing surgery are put in the east side, kids who’s cases are being led by medical teams are on the west side. She is assigned to a room in the east wing. This is actually good, as one of the nurses tells me later in the week, because the kids on the other side tend to have lots of boogers and snot, and are typically sicker than the kids on this side (more contagions over there). So we get settled in, she gets an antibiotic Rocephin (ro-sef-in), via IV and stays connected to her drip. It’s about 0400. She still has a fever, still has pain, but maybe now we can settle down and rest for a bit. I make my bed in the room, on the long, barely padded bench that’s against the wall with windows (lovely view of the parking garage, by the way). I ask for a toothbrush and toothpaste (for me) since I haven’t brushed my teeth since Sunday morning. I get them, and also make Abigail brush her teeth – she hadn’t brushed since Saturday night (and by now, her breath was, shall we say, less than pleasant). Maybe I can sleep, too? Not likely. I pray over my girl again. About every twenty minutes, someone is coming in to check on something. Nurse, nurse’s assistant, someone getting the linens, someone else checking on supplies (hand sanitizer, gloves, etc.). I sort of got about 3 hours of sleep, in twenty-minute spurts. They schedule her for an ultrasound of her kidneys, so they can get a better look at the foreign thing taking up residence there. That should happen about 0800. At 0645 on the clock in our room, they come to take her to radiology. Wow…early, I thought. Good – let’s get it done! The ultrasound is far less uncomfortable than the ct scan, though she does say “ow” several times as the technician puts the wand on her and applies a little pressure to get the right views. When she starts to complain I remind her of her ct scan, and how this isn’t really all that bad. Ultrasound done, we are returned to the room, and we wait for the doctors to look at the ultrasound. My untrained eye clearly sees a dark splotch in the middle of kidney. In all the tv shows, whenever there’s a dark spot or a light spot, it’s always bad news. Dramatically bad news. We’ll see what comes of this.

 

Monday morning for the rest of the world: About 0900, the doctors are showing up to work. I meet Dr. Boreman, who is actually a doc from the base. He’s the attending for this case. I also meet the resident, Dr. Colby, she’s another one from the base. There’s a second resident on this case as well, Dr. Mergler. Not sure where she fits in, but whatever. So we’ve got an attending, two residents, a surgeon is still keeping an eye on this case, a radiologist, and a urologist. Each one comes in (one at a time, of course, not all together) and they remark on how unusual her case is. All the doctors and the nurses, they typically listen to Abigail for a minute or two then turn to me and say “she’s really smart, isn’t she?” Yeah, I get that a lot. Eventually, they all say the same thing, that they’ll give antibiotics and wait and see, though there’s a slight change from the initial diagnosis of abscess: they think it’s pyelonephritis. Basically, that’s just an infection in the kidney. The abscess is more of a close-walled thing, whereas the pyelonephritis is more ‘open’ and prone to attack from antibiotics. By the time we finished the ultrasound, Abigail is nearly in tears because she’s hungry and thirsty. She can’t have anything to eat or drink until we know they aren’t going to do surgery. So we wait. Monday goes by in a slightly surreal way. I eventually figure out that I feel so confused about the time because the clock in the room is wrong – it wasn’t set forward an hour over the weekend. I take the friggin’ clock off the wall and fix the time myself! So the ultrasound wasn’t done early, it was done a teensy bit late, actually. I call work and nicely tell them that I don’t care about anything going on there, and everyone agrees that’s fine. I don’t have to take leave. Yay! I’m trying to make sure Abigail is comfortable, and I’m watching her temperature rise up over 103 then coast back down again. She’s still hurting in her head and her side, but she mostly wants to rest. There is a family resource center on the 2^nd floor where I can get some movies for her. I check a couple out, but she doesn’t want to watch them until way later that night. The first time I head down there, I ask a student nurse to sit in with her while I’m away for a few minutes. Abigail was getting along well with this particular lady, so I thought it would help her feel okay while I went downstairs. I was only gone for about 10 minutes, but when I came back she had just thrown up. Not much, since there was nothing in her stomach, just a couple of tablespoons. But the nursing student was heading out of the room to get the head nurse, since there was blood there. Oh no…what now? Blood in her puke? This can’t be good, or even ok. I get a couple of paper towels wet to help her wipe her mouth, and see the blood. It’s maybe a couple of drops of bright red blood. I look at her, and see the exact same shade slowly dripping out of her nose. Oh – it’s just a bloody nose! Just a bloody nose! I don’t care about bloody noses! Balen has them all time, and his can be gushers. This is just a small little ooze, it doesn’t even need any more attention than a swipe with a tissue! We get her cleaned up and sitting back, and the resident comes back. She sees that Abigail is clearly hungry and thirsty, and calls the urologist, the last one they were waiting on to look at the ultrasounds. He has been in surgery all morning. He clears her to eat – hooray! No surgery!! We immediately order something up for her to eat. She insists on eating soft foods, even though there’s no restriction on what she can eat. “You have teeth!” I tell her. She gets applesauce, yogurt, and chicken noodle soup.

 

They tell me the thing in her kidney is about 9mm across. Not really large enough to drain, so antibiotics are the choice course of action.

 

Monday afternoon: The food arrives, and she doesn’t want to eat. She wants to rest. She rests, and eventually starts to eat. She slowly gets the applesauce in here, then a little yogurt. She never touches the soup. She throws up what she ate. Good thing she’s connected to an IV. The food here sucks. I’m glad she didn’t eat the soup. It looks canned. We don’t do canned stuff (well, tomatoes when they’re out of season, but that’s about it), or boxed either. And only a handful of frozen items. It’s perplexing, and unbelievable, that they have so much garbage on the menu here. Froot Loops? They can’t even spell ‘fruit’ correctly, let alone provide decent nutrition. The very crap that’s likely making people sick in the first place is provided for them at the place where they are supposed to get better. At least we aren’t here because of diet. All of the docs told us there is nothing that we could have done or not done – it’s not food or environment, it’s not exposure to something – to have caused her problem. It’s just a freak event, unpredictable and unpreventable.

 

Jonathan and Balen return, and the kids watch a movie together. They bring some food with them, including some yogurt. Jonathan went out and picked up Smashburger for dinner (burgers and fries for the three of us – she didn’t want anything since she wasn’t keeping anything down). I feed Abigail some yogurt. Not that she can’t do it, but since her IV is in her right arm, she’s having a hard time getting the food to her mouth neatly, and she doesn’t feel good, she’s tired, etc. So I feed her. She also had a little leftover ravioli with tilapia and cauliflower. She manages to keep this down, but it’s really not a whole lot of food. Great that she’s keeping it down though!

 

We have some visitors today, too. Bobby Hart from our house church stops by on his way home from work. A bit later the Gould’s stop in (Dave, Jamie, and Cody, who’s 12) also from our house church. Everyone is bringing little gifts, and she’s now got some stuffed animals and puzzle books to occupy her time here – when she’s feeling well enough, that is. Visitors leave at 2000, then the boys go home. Abigail and I settle in for the night. Nurses and staff are constantly coming in and checking on things. I ask her if she wants me to sleep in the bed with her (these beds are wider than the ones in the ER) and she says no. She doesn’t me hovering around her, constantly holding her hand, but she also doesn’t want me to leave. At one point she tells me “go back to what you were doing,” telling me that she wants me to go back to reading my book in the corner of the room, and not bother her any more. She’s not a little girl anymore, but she’s a long ways from all grown up. Not nearly as much activity this night as last night. There are still people checking on her fairly regularly, but we both get some sleep.

 

Tuesday: She gets another dose of the antibiotic at 0400 (it’s once every 24 hours for this one). She’s still going up and down with fever, but it’s topping out at a lower peak than the day before. They take some blood the next time her fever spikes, to see if they can get any bacteria cultures from it. This time, they don’t use the IV, since it now needs to be used for fluids. She gets a little stressed about it. She orders scrambled eggs at breakfast, takes one bite and says they’re gross, mine are WAY better, and does she have to eat them? No, she doesn’t have to eat them. I’m sure they’re made from powder. They are probably disgusting. We ask Daddy to bring in some scrambled eggs for her, and she eats about half of what he brought. Tuesday goes by rather uneventfully. I go to the base for a dental appointment, which I end up rescheduling because it will take a long time, and I don’t want to be away for too long. I stop by work to turn off the out-of-office reply for me email, grab a few things to work on while sitting in the hospital, and give people there an update. I tell a co-worker about the hospital’s email a patient thing, and Jonathan send out the email below. Emails start flooding for Abigail. They really pick up her spirits, and put a smile on her face. They do another urine test as well. There still isn’t any real infection, but one particular bacteria, enterococcus, is a bit high. Normally, the count of bacteria per mL required to be classified as an infection is 100,000. The enterococcus is at 40,000. Nothing else is showing up. They are keeping in mind that this is after the Rocephin, so bacteria counts may be lower, even though Rocephin doesn’t target enterococcus. They switch her antibiotic to something called Unison, which is also given via IV, but 4x/day instead of once every 24 hours. So her first dose of that was given Tuesday evening, ‘bout 1800. The blood cultures don’t show much of anything. Jonathan goes out and picks up Panera for all of us, including some of their chicken noodle soup for Abigail. She is starting to eat, and keeping things down, but her appetite is still pretty small. She eats less soup than Balen does, and Balen also had some turkey sandwich. But at least she’s eating, and keeping the food down. Since she’s keeping food down, they take her off the IV, to see how she’ll do on her own. The line still stays in her vein, but now she’s free to move about without wheeling her fluids along with her. This makes many things easier: going pee, taking a shower, brushing her teeth, changing clothes, laying around in bed. My men stay here a little later this night, but go home after a while.

 

Wednesday: Wednesday is St Patrick’s day. She gets meds at 0600, but we sleep a little longer. The docs make their rounds, ‘bout 0900. Nothing really new for today. We do have a second ultrasound scheduled for today, to see if the thing in her kidney has changed at all. Abigail gives me a hard time about not wearing green. She isn’t either, but since her hospital bracelet is green, she is convinced she’s fine, and I’m prone to pinching. I tell her that mommies who come to the ER on Sunday night don’t pack clothes and don’t plan for St Patrick’s day. I’m exempt! We head down to radiology for the second ultrasound. I’m not a radiologist, but I can compare, and I can read. The spot looks about the same. If that isn’t enough, the measurements on the screen, when the technician placed the little marks on each side of it, showed 1.08 cm. Hmm. I’m not medically trained, but I can move a decimal point (I’ve got my P.E. now, remember?). Giving a margin of error, which I’m sure there is one, considering the measurement would depend on what pixel the technician clicks on, 1.08 cm is the same thing as 9 mm. It hasn’t shrunk. It hasn’t grown, either, which is good. But that’s just what I think.

 

My men show up later in the afternoon. I take the little man home with me, and cook up a storm. I bake some bread, make spaghetti with meat sauce, make some chicken stew and brown rice, boil some eggs, make a salad, pack some dressing, make pancakes (with whole grains!) and pack some pure maple syrup (the stuff in the hospital is not maple syrup, it’s corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, caramel coloring, artificial flavoring, etc.). I grab some cheese, some salami, and some sweet treats: organic lollipops from TJs for the kids, some dark chocolate for Daddy and me. Balen plays outside with the dogs while I work in the kitchen. I also pack some clothes for myself, and grab Abigail and my yoga mats. Balen and I get back to the hospital about 4 hours after we left. Not too bad, if you ask me.

 

She and Daddy did some crafts in a different part of the hospital while we were gone. She ate her leftover soup for lunch, and had some chicken stew and rice for dinner. She actually ate a whole bowl of food this time. She’s been keeping everything down since yesterday. No need to hook her back up to the IV. She’s got to pee into a “hat” every time she goes, so we can track her output. We’ve got to get on her case to get her to drink water – she seems incapable of consuming an amount of water that approach that of a normal human girl without tons of prodding from us.

 

Jonathan and Balen go out for ice cream from Graeter’s after we eat dinner. It takes him long enough that I start to wonder where he is. I text him: “Everything ok?” He replies “Got pulled over. No ticket.” Hmm. Well, he’s driving the Mazda, which he’s done some work on, and it is St. Patrick’s day, and he was passing through the part of town where all the drinking was happening. The officer pulled him over for going through a yellow light (?) but when he saw Jonathan (and Balen, I’m assuming) and the ice cream and heard that he had a girl in the hospital, I’m pretty sure the guy wasn’t interested further. Jonathan said he only asked for his license, no insurance or registration, which is a clear sign he wouldn’t be getting a ticket. He was just looking for drunk drivers.

 

We all enjoyed our ice cream, and the boys went home late – after 11. Turns out that parking is free if you leave after 2300. It’s $2/day otherwise.

 

Thursday: Abigail and I didn’t go to sleep until after her midnight IV antibiotics, so we slept in a bit. Dr. Boreman stopped by at 0800, a little earlier than usual, so he woke us up. Abigail wasn’t interested in eating very much all morning long, nor in drinking. She was glued to her DS most of the time. Her fever was mostly gone, and I actually thought we might be going home tonight. All the doctors said that if she maintains a non-fever temperature for 24 hours, she could go home. Fever is defined at 38°C (100.4°F). Her last fever was last night at about 1730. So we were looking at being released from the hospital that evening, potentially.

 

She continued with the antibiotics, and we mostly just hung out and waited. I did yoga. Tried to get her to do it with me, which produced much frustration for both of us. All she wants to do is play those stupid video games. I warned her that it’ll be taken away if she doesn’t find other things to do. There is more to life than video games! I made her take a shower before getting a real meal. It took until noon for her to get her butt showered. Then the men showed up and we all had the pancakes that I made the day before.

 

She monitored her temperature, and we were doing good until 1600. The nurses gave us our own thermometer – I think on Tuesday. It’s an oral thermometer (digital). The nurses use a scanner-type thermometer, that they run from the middle of the forehead, down one side of the face to behind the ear. When we report an elevated temperature, they check it for themselves and record it. I haven’t been wrong yet…even before they gave us our own thermometer, I would tell them that I think her temp is rising again, and I’d be right.

 

The urologist ordered another test – a VCUG: a voiding cystourethrogram. This test is an x-ray where fluid is pumped into the bladder, images are taken, and more images are taken while the patient pees out the fluid. They are looking to see if what goes in the bladder stays in the bladder, or if it backtracks into the kidneys, indicating vesicoureteral reflux (which I’ll now refer to simply as reflux or VUR). First they insert a catheter (she was extremely nervous and stresses about this, but it ended up being a loud “ow!” and that was it – she was laughing by the end of the test) then they drain her urine. They keep the catheter in and pump her bladder full of fluid. They do this until she says she needs to pee, then they have her pee and take the pictures. She basically pees into a diaper and some towels, so it’s not as messy as it sounds. And the fluid is clear – just like when they put it in. The cool part about this test is that the images are right there on the screen next to the patient’s head. I was there with her the whole time. I saw the bladder grow & glow (the contrast fluid makes it glow on the x-ray), then I saw the tubes from her bladder glow, the right one just a little, the left one a lot. Then one side of her left kidney started to glow. It looks really cool, actually – her whole bladder, the line to the kidney, and about a third of her kidney all brightly highlighted in the frame of her body. Except that I know what it means: my girl has reflux. I don’t need a radiologist or urologist to interpret that one for me.

 

But we then have to wait for the urologist to look at it. He calls us a couple hours later, after we’ve been told officially that her fever at 1600 has kept us here another day. The urologist tells me what I already know, then tells me what we can/should do. He says that we’ll continue the treatment we’re on: two weeks of antibiotics. Whenever it is we go home, we’ll get a prescription for the number of days remaining of the two weeks since she started antibiotics, which was Monday morning. But with reflux, she will need antibiotics daily until she has a procedure done to correct the backflow. Either an injection that effectively creates a ball valve or a surgery to realign/reroute the tubes from the kidney to the bladder. Jonathan and I will be busy looking into these options over the next few weeks. The urologist said that it’s not something we need to do right away – in fact, her bladder should be disease- and stress-free (no VUCG tests, for instance) for 4-6 weeks before any work is done on it. He said if we wanted to wait until summer or fall, that would be fine. With this condition, most little kids have a chance they’ll outgrow it. Abigail is considered “old” for this condition, meaning that she isn’t going to outgrow it, so some sort of intervention will be necessary. I’m not keen on the idea of giving her antibiotics every day, so I’m inclined to get this done sooner rather than later. But we have a lot of information to gather first.

 

Jonathan has lots of questions for the doctors, so he’ll be here in the morning. He wasn’t happy with a phone call to our room from the urologist. He thought he should have come up here to talk to us. I know that he’ll be by in the morning to go over everything with us, so I wasn’t concerned. All the docs make their round in the morning. I guess they are busy reading lab results all afternoon, and calling patients (or more likely their parents) with the results, to go room to room. I don’t know. The phone call doesn’t bother me, but it does Jonathan. I think he’s feeling a little out of the loop, though I’m telling him everything as soon as I know. It’s hard to keep track though.

 

We all eat dinner here (all food from home: spaghetti, salad, and fruit for dessert). The boys leave around 2100. Abigail and I hang out for a while – do a craft, put on a musical, eat some more food. I make her drink more water. She doesn’t seem to understand that she NEEDS to drink MORE WATER! I attempt to educate her on that.

 

Friday: Well, she didn’t wait long on Friday to reset our “get out of the hospital” clock: at 0020 she reached 102°F. So now we’re looking at Saturday morning at the earliest. Jonathan and I are starting to do research into the procedures for correcting VUR. We don’t like the fact that they want her on antibiotics from now until whenever she has a procedure done. We’d like to skip the daily antibiotics. We’ll talk with the urologist at some point here and see. She’s been healthy this whole time. She’s 10! The doctors keep talking about how unusual this is for a child her age, it’s far more common in young children – Balen’s age and younger. Maybe she’s just actually healthy – with this one infection as an exception. I’d feel differently if we were constantly battling UTIs, but she’s never had one. We don’t want to wait forever to do the procedure, either. We’d like to get it done soon – in the next month or two, if we can.

 

Her temperature has been up 99.5°F today so far. If she does get another fever, she’ll have another ultrasound scheduled tomorrow. The key question is: what is that thing in her kidney? They are basing her recovery from it on her temperature and how she’s feeling. They are making a highly educated guess that the enterococcus is the culprit, based on its presence in the urine. But the fact is they don’t actually KNOW what’s in her kidney. So…we’re waiting and seeing.

Here's an image from her VCUG showing the stuff going up into her kidney:




This is the image with some expert and dramatic illustration: