Monday, May 13, 2013

2 Appointments In 1 Day

Today I had to take Wendy to two appointments, luckily only in Athens and my mom went with me to help. Her first appointment was to check her kidney reflux to see if we needed to continue giving her Bactrim daily and to see if we needed another follow up with a urologist. As you may or may not know, Wendy was born with right grade 1 VUR (vesicoureteral reflux) and mild left hydronephrosis. VUR is when urine back flows into the kidneys and hydronephrosis is swelling of the kidneys. The days after she was born, when they were checking all her major organs, a renal ultrasound showed mild hydronephrosis on her left kidney. Three weeks later a VCUG showed the grade 1 reflux on her right kidney. Because of that, she was put on amoxicillin daily for UTI prophylaxis. We were scheduled to follow up with urology after she was discharged from the hospital. When we met with urology, she was 3 months old, and they performed another renal ultrasound. That ultrasound showed the hydronephrosis was no longer present but Wendy still needed antibiotics for the VUR. They switched her to Bactrim since that’s more suited for children over 3 months and she’s been on it since then. Grade 1 reflux is usually something kids grow out of, so today we went to have her kidneys checked.

Today they did a VCUG (voiding cysto-urethrogram).  We had to strip Wendy down and put her in a hospital gown, then a nurse cleaned her bottom with iodine. Then, they inserted a catheter while a technician and myself held her down. The catheter was used to put a contrast dye in Wendy’s bladder. Once Wendy’s bladder was filled, the technician began taking x-rays. We had to hold her down until she urinated and emptied her bladder. As she was going potty, the contrast showed whether or not her urine was backing up into her kidneys or not. After her bladder was empty the catheter was removed and we were able to go home. About 2 hours later (when we were just leaving therapy), Miss Ivy called from Dr. Martin’s office to say Wen’s kidneys looked great and no more Bactrim was needed.

We also had her first appointment with a feeding therapist today. (Now do you see why I had to have my mom go? It would have been too exhausting to do all of that alone because Wendy is a handful and a half, HAHA!) Not much happened with feeding therapy. The therapist just wants us to work on desensitizing the back of Wendy’s mouth since she mainly chews with the front and said we should try to give pureed food a little more texture, which I already do because Wendy does better with thicker consistencies. We go back Monday for another therapy session and then next Wednesday is her well check appointment with the pediatrician. We’re going to try to get Wendy an Infinity pump so she can wear it in a backpack so she won’t be so constricted and limited in her movements.

Wendy’s really been doing pretty great. She’s loving the Gerber Puffs and Crunchies and she’s getting better at using her sippy cup. Hopefully things will continue progressing in a positive manner. 

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