Saturday, February 2, 2008

Update on Katherine...




Katherine was diagnosed with moderately severe hydronephrosis (a dialated right kidney and possible malformation and/or duplication of the ureter connecting the kidney to the bladder) in an ultrasound a week before she was born. They did a sono on her immediately after birth and referred us to Children's Mercy for some tests yesterday. They went well...it was a traumatic experience seeing my little newborn in a hospital gown strapped down to a table for voiding cystourethrogram (VCUG)... especially when having a catheter put in (she's feisty and doesn't like to be messed with). The appt's with Radiology and the Pediatric Urologist at Children's Mercy really didn't provide us with any definitive answers and she'll have to go back for another round in March (a Renal ultrasound (RUS) and a renal (kidney) scan) when she's a little bigger (any further tests at this point would be invalidated by the fact that all babies her age have immature kidney's anyway). She'll have to no doubt have surgery (but not until she's one) to correct her issue (malformed ureter) and may have only partial or no function in her right kidney (we'll know more in March). In the meantime, she'll continue to be on an antibiotic daily just in case of potential infection. Retrospectively, we are just feel happy and blessed that this was caught early, before any infections. If I hadn't measured large at my 37 week appt., my OBGYN would not have performed the sono at and the hydronephrosis would not have been detected at all. So we are just grateful for that...and that God gives us two kidneys when we really only need one! :)

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