"Cured!"

...a word we don't hear often enough...

As many of you may know, Jeff and I have had our share of medical problems with our children. Kaleb had numerous ear infections between the ages of 2 and 3. When they finally cleared up, after having tubes put in, his ear drums were bulging. This condition caused him to hear everything like he was underwater. After steroids and many trips and tests to the audiologist and ENT doctor, he was eventually better. Maddie should have had surgery on her feet at 6 months of age to correct her ankles and hips. We didn't catch it fast enough, so now she wears orthopedic inserts and does physical therapy to help "open" her hips until she gets bigger. Garet was born with a urological birth defect. He had surgery at 6 months of age to correct this. After many complications following the surgery: blocked urethra, pneumonia, whole body infection, bladder overtaking entire body cavity; he was sent home with a tube coming out of his stomach to aid in emptying his bladder. After 2 more surgeries, we thought we had put these "problems" behind us....until last summer. Garet started peeing blood. We went back to his specialist at Primary Children's and took tests. The findings: Garet had Level I Vesicoureteral Reflux on the right side and Level II on the left. This meant that the urine was refluxing from his bladder back into his kidneys; worse on the left side than the right. He was also not emptying his bladder completely, thus irritating his condition. The doctor's recommendation: antibiotics for a year and retest to see if it has gotten any better or worse. Had he been a Level II on both sides, they would have gone ahead and done the surgery last year.

Today we went up to Primary Children's to repeat the tests. First, they did an ultrasound to check to see what his kidneys and bladder looked like:

Garet was sooo good! He kept perfectly still the whole time!
Next, we had to go into the scary room with the gigantic X-ray machine to do the VCUG. For this test, they place a catheter in him, empty the contents, and "re-fill" his bladder with a solution that they can watch with the x-rays. It was a little scary, and Garet got a little nervous before the test. But, he was a CHAMP!! He was sooo brave! He didn't cry at all while they were inserting the catheter. When they made him "hold it" for a little bit to check to see where "it" would go before he released "it," he had a little bit of a hard time (think drinking an entire Route 44 and holding it for an hour).

I couldn't resist capturing Jeff in this get-up!! :-)

Afterwards, we went up to see his Pediatric Urologist Dr. Snow. The prognosis: "Garet is cured!!" There is no sign of reflux in either side any longer! And, he is now completely emptying his bladder effectively! We are sooooo relieved! He has less that a 2% chance of it re-occurring.

As we left, Dr. Snow told us to keep in mind that any other children we have will have a 33.33% chance of having reflux also. Let's hope our days with Pediatric Urology are over!!