Anna

We took our trip up to Spokane on the 11th of January. Carly and Anna headed up early in the morning and swung over to CDA to pick up Mark since he was working up there. Our friend Linda came to our house in the morning so the boys could sleep in. She then took them over to our friend Megan's house and was also joined by our friend Tamra. We are so appreciative for their help especially since combined there were a total of 8 kids!!!!

The whole day seemed like a hurry up and wait. We got into the pediatric surgery unit and it was a bit of madness. There was no official waiting room and kids and babies were being taken back for surgeries and surgeons were coming out telling people how surgeries went. People were crying, kids were crying. I couldn't help but feel we were in the wrong spot. Anna was a real trooper they numbed her with cream so she really didn't cry too much from the IV. The cath I'm sure couldn't have been pleasant but she didn't fuss too much. After the poking she had her bottle and slept through the entire scan! Such a good girl!!!

After the scan we were able to immediately go see the Nephrologist who said her kidneys looked great (other than the hydronephrosis). He did feel there were obstructions on both ureters and we were referred to a Urologist.

So back up to Spokane on the following Monday for a meeting with the Urologist and this is what we were told... (I'm copying from an e-mail so I don't have to re-type it all!)

 She has to have two surgeries. The first one is on January 31st and the second one is tentatively scheduled for April 17th. It depends upon how she does with the first surgery healing and all that whether the second one will be on time or pushed back. Both our Mom's are planning on coming over (alternatively) to stay with the boys so we can both be with Anna.

Whats happening is that the ureters (tubes that carry urine from kidney to bladder) have an obstruction (called a UPJ obstruction). Basically they have a section that looks like an hour glass and it should be completely cylindrical. So this narrowing is causing the urine to hang out in her kidneys way longer than it should be. On the positive side, all of her kidney tests came back showing two fully functioning healthy kidneys with no damage! Surgeon said its possible that there could be some minimal damage that isn't showing up but since she hasn't had any UTI's or infections that its very likely they are not damaged! She has been put on some precautionary antibiotics to ensure she does not get any infections. I was skeptical about putting her on them since she has has no issues but he said the risk of a UTI causing damage to her is high, so best to avoid it if at all possible! Nothing really caused this to happen seems it was probably a birth defect and they just didn't form correctly, he said its pretty unusual for them to be obstructed on both sides, but obviously it does happen!

It will be a 2-4 hour surgery with a 1 to 3 day hospital stay depending upon how she does. They will go in through an approximate 1 inch incision on her back, cut out the obstructing area on the ureter and then fuse it back together. The surgeon said in his experience babies of this age usually heal pretty fast! Surgery has a 95% success rate so hopefully this will do the job and she will be good to go! We will go in for testing afterwards to make certain!

So hopefully by her first birthday we have a clean bill of health!!!! We are grateful that its a fixable problem and that it was found early before any damage was done to her kidneys! It is fairly common as far as this type of defect goes and she will have two surgeons working on her in the OR.

I told Mark we need to stop having dates in doctors offices and hospitals!!