Friday, December 5, 2008

Ureters, Reflux and Surgeries. Oh my.

When I was 20 weeks pregnant with the Princess I had a level 2 ultrasound to check my placenta because of the minor abruption I had with SkyWalker. The placenta was okay. The Princess's right kidney was not. That was in January 2007, nearly 2 years ago, and that is how long we have been dealing with this. 


In October of 2007, at a mere 5 months old, the Princess had her first surgery. The plan was to take her "bad" ureter on the right side and hook it up to the good one (you're only supposed to have one anyway!). When they got inside the bad one was so kinked up that they couldn't do it. So they took both ureters and detached them and then reattached them right next to each other on the bladder. Her follow up ultrasound looked great, but she didn't have a VCUG because she hadn't had reflux to begin with... and then she got her UTI in April 08 and in June she had the VCUG and lo and behold there was reflux. In Sept, nearly a year after her first surgery, she had the deflux procedure done to correct the reflux. Today she had another ultrasound and VCUG. 

It didn't work.

The bad ureter is just so bad that the deflux didn't even make a dent. So in March 09 they will take the bad ureter and hook it up to the good one. Yeah, you read that right. She's grown so much that the ureter has stretched and unkinked itself and they are confident that they can do it this time and then that will be it, it will be fixed. At that point she will be just under 2 years old and she will have her 3rd surgery. 

Good. Friggin. Times.

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8 comments:

Shinesalot said...

I'm so sorry, J. (I can call you that, now, can't I, JediMama?) :) I'm sorry that you had to sweat this for going on two years....

Felice said...

Just plain sucky. Sucky, sucky.

medlibrarygirl said...

Big big hugs. I know Leah will be fine, but I know this has to be so stressful for you.

Bee said...

I am so sorry to hear that... Let us know if there is anything we can do to help when the time comes around...

bookishbiker said...

I'm so sorry. I know that the surgery is invasive, but I'm wondering - are they able to go through little tiny holes, at least? Will she have any unpleasant symptoms until this gets fixed?

Jedi Mama said...

If it's like the last one she'll have a big ol' scar on her belly. Her last scar is almost invisible now. I put a lot of vitamin E on it. ;-) I don't *think* she has any symptoms. She's on the amoxicillin so she doesn't get any infections. She pees fine. If she weren't taking amoxicillin she would be getting UTIs and that would be pretty damn unpleasant. She's only had one in her life and that was enough!

ayanna said...

Hugs to the family. Totally bites. :(

Janis said...

I'm sorry to hear about your little princess.