So what about...?

The Princess:

When I was 20 weeks pregnant with the Princess I had an ultrasound to see if there was anything wrong with the placenta because of the partial abruption I had with SkyWalker. The placenta was fine, but they saw dilation (backed up fluid) in the right kidney. That was roughly 3 1/2 years ago and we have been dealing with it ever since. She's been on antibiotics every day since the day she was born. She was taken off after her first surgery but developed reflux and got a UTI within just 2-3 months and put back on them. 

Today was her latest ultrasound. There's still some dilation around the ureter they fixed, but it looks exactly the same as it did 6 months ago. Not better, but also not worse. We finally heard the words we've been waiting to hear--she can go off the medication. We'll have to be super vigilant about preventing UTIs from all the other ways little girls get them--holding in pee too long, not wiping correctly, etc. I am sure I will be more paranoid than ever now. I think I'll probably get those at home UTI test kits so I don't have to drag her to the doctor every time I panic. She'll have yearly ultrasounds to make sure that nothing is changing but other than that she should be okay.

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SkyWalker:

We had some bad days and got into some serious altercations, but for the most part it's been great having SkyWalker home. I almost don't want him to go back to school. Our problems always stem from the same thing--he makes some kind of mess or does some crazy thing and then when I tell him it's time to stop he refuses to listen and is disrespectful and rude and doesn't take me seriously. Until I explode and then he's hysterical. How quickly it takes me to explode seems to vary a lot lately. We've been doing pretty well recently. And when I put things in perspective, we only have these blowups at home, never in public. When we are out he is always very well behaved. He's a great big brother. How many almost 6 year olds do you know who willingly take their 3 year old sisters outside and push them on a swing? With a smile? He's always coming and getting Chewie out of the dishwasher and taking her to her toys and distracting her so she'll stop crying. He loves his sisters and I know I can always trust him with them. 

He has huge tonsils and probably huge adenoids and will see an ENT in September who will probably recommend surgery. This will royally suck since as we all know surgery sucks, but more so because he will be a big baby about the recovery. And this is the first time I have a kid having surgery who can actually say the words "I don't want surgery." So that's fun.

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Chewie:

She walks. I fought it, but she walks. She doesn't run and she still crawls more than walks, but she is putting one foot in front of the other on a regular basis. She also screams. She makes sounds and can say Mama and Dada and Nana and bababababababa. But for the most part her preferred method of communication is "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH" very loudly. She can hear, she copies her brother's humming and singing, and she sometimes follows directions. She is just LOUD. Perhaps when she has me all to herself she will find her inside voice. It must be inside of her somewhere. 

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Running:

I had to cut down to 3 times a week, which is the funniest thing I think I've ever written. I have yet to do any yoga and probably won't. I do have a weight lifting routine that I will start after my race this Saturday. I am training for a 10K in October, but since I am pretty sure SkyWalker's surgery will be in October I'm kind of doing it for the training and expecting to not actually do the race. Whatever happens, happens. I ran my longest distance (4.5 miles) last Sunday and thought "I only have to do 1.5 more" not "holy crap how am I going to do 1.5 more?" So that's good. Oh! And my girlie problem turned out to be nothing more than some low-down cramping so I just have to take motrin 800 and I'm all good. It won't interfere with my running at all. 

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Working:

I've been thinking a lot about when I have to go back to work when my last baby is in school. I have no desire whatsoever to go back to work. But I'm sure Vader will have a heart attack if I say that. If I could find a library job that will let me work 9-1 that would be great. I want to get the kids off the bus and be here when there are here. I don't want nights or weekends. I just don't want that anymore. Ideally, I would like to find a job that will let me work from home. Even though I get paid crapola from the examiner I've been doing lots of articles. I'm trying to build up a resource between that and my book blog and establish my presence online again. If I can do some kind of freelance writing or even librarianing (I know that's not a word but I like it.) through the internets I think we'd be okay. Vader's school loan is paid off. Mine will be paid off by then. We won't be spending money on diapers. The only debt we have is the van and the house. And by the time the last baby is in school SkyWalker might be old enough to start mowing lawns. So, if you haven't been reading my examiner articles or going through my book blog to get to amazon, you're dead to me.

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Surgery is sucky

I don't know how much time I have before the Princess needs something... she is watching Curious George (after requesting Dora and then taking the remote and flipping around until she found the movies on demand station and a preview for Australian movies with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and then saying George). 

It has not been an easy week. 

She had her surgery Monday morning. They couldn't do the original plan of putting the bad ureter on the good one. The surgeon just didn't want to take the risk of the "good" one not being good enough. So they took both off and put them both back on the kidney (yes this pretty much is what they did when she was 5 months old). They buried them deep within the bladder and made a decent size tunnel. He said her bladder muscle was pretty thin and that's the only reason he can think of for her developing the reflux to begin with. We'll know in May if it was successful and if it wasn't he says *he's* going to cry. 

Recovery has been much harder than the first time. She refused to walk because it hurt too much. She had the equivalent of an epidural in the hospital and it took a while for her to feel her legs again. She couldn't poop and that doesn't happen to her too often so I think she was in even more pain. I gave her a suppository yesterday morning and she seems to be doing a bit better. Eating and drinking a little more and walking if I hold her hand. During the surgery they found bacteria in her urine and it it turned out to be a UTI. So no more amoxicillin (obviously didn't work). She's on bactrum now and she does not like it. She has to drink a ton of water or it will hurt her kidneys. She's drinking more now but before she pooped she was not drinking as much as she should have. She also needs to drink more to flush out all of the blood. She was looking pretty good at the hospital because she had the IV. 

All in all it's been much harder than when she was 5 months old and wasn't even crawling let alone walking. She slept a lot more and had more time to heal. I'm glad I took last night off from work and really wish I didn't have to work this weekend. She's doing a bit better but she's still not independently walking. It's going to be a long weekend away from her. 

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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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Done now

I'm done now. No more surgeries please. kthxbye. 

The Princess has reflux. If you recall from here and here the Princess was born with 2 ureters on the right kidney. One of them was not emptying into the bladder correctly. So they did surgery and wound up putting the two of them in a new spot right next to each other. Seems as if the weaker of the two ureters now has reflux. 

Options:

A) Wait and see. Do nothing. Keep her on amoxicillin and see if it resolves itself. 

B) Traditional surgery.

C) Deflux--outpatient procedure in which they inject a substance to bulk up the weak muscle around the ureter in the hope that it will function better. 

A) would be great if she was born with reflux, but she wasn't. This is because her ureter is weak. I can't see it resolving itself and the doc said the odds weren't great. We run the risk of needing to do surgery anyway, only when she is older and I am either pregnant or already have another baby.

B) 90% success rate. But another surgery... another incision. Another night in the hospital. Another recovery. 

C) 80% success rate. No side effects. Outpatient and she's back to normal as soon as the anesthesia wears off. if it doesn't work she can still have traditional surgery. It it does work she's only had to go through a procedure. 

Vader and I haven't discussed it yet since he went to work immediately after we left the doc's office. I'm leaning towards option C. The surgeon stressed that all 3 options are acceptable and that there was no immediate rush to do anything. She's not in life-threatening danger. The kidney itself looks great. No damage is being done and as long as she doesn't get more infections she's okay. Looks like we'll be on the amoxicillin for a while. We have to e-mail the surgeon and let him know how we want to proceed. 

I am SO done with this crap. Only I'm not. And that's the sad part. 

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