Goodbye stent, hello swollen kidney.

I do remember that G was in a fantastic mood and other than being overly tired. In fact, he was feeling so decent that we stopped at IKEA on the way home and bought him a new big-boy bed. After a quick, albeit late, lunch of chicken nuggets, fries and apple slices, we were on our way home. I felt so overjoyed that yet another hospital visit and surgery was behind us and that this is what it felt like to have a successful, non-complicated surgery. It was such a difference from open-heart surgery, which sounds obvious but until you've lived it, you don't really get it.

We got home around 3:00pm, I think, and decided that it was probably a good idea for everyone to take a nap. And this is when things got messy.

We awoke to the sound of G crying. Given the fact that he'd just had major surgery, we didn't think anything of it. I brought him downstairs and after a while, it became obvious that he was more than just uncomfortable, so I gave him some Advil and we soothed him on the couch and tried our best to distract him. Sure enough, he calmed down about 45 minutes later. I didn't want him to take the Advil on an empty stomach, so I made him eat some yogurt before the Advil. He refused it at first, but I was able to coax him into it. At around 7:00pm, he stood up to walk to the kitchen where I was standing and I saw the look on his face. I'm never sure if it's mother's intuition or a look of pure panic in the eyes or what, but I knew what was coming: puke. And it did. He threw up and didn't stop. We thought it was just the yogurt, so we cleaned him up, chalked it up to silly parenting and tucked him in for the night. An hour later, I could hear him whimpering "Mommy... Momma..." and I ran upstairs to find him and his bed covered in vomit. We reasoned that he probably was still reacting to the anesthesia, so we cleaned him up and tucked him in again. An hour later, we replayed the previous scene. This time, though, he made it to the bathroom and then began to be sick with real gusto. The poor kid had nothing left in his stomach and when the dry heaving started, I called the hospital. 

After talking to a few different doctors on call, we were told to bring him back to BCH immediately. And, almost on cue, G started vomiting blood. It was 10:30pm at night and we rushed around, packing him up into the car with a bowl, some towels and I drove the 45 minutes back to Boston. Alone. Pulling over every 10 minutes to help my three-year-old vomit blood. You want to feel alone? Try this some time. Or rather don't. It's not fun, trust me.

G and I finally made it to BCH at around 11:55pm and rushed into the ER. He was so lethargic at this point, he could barely open his eyes. There were a few nurses standing around when we walked in, but as soon as they saw me, they ran over, ushered G and me onto a chair and began working on him. After the initial intake paperwork, they found a room for us and the ER waiting game began. G alternated between vomiting more blood and sleeping. The doctor would come in, test the vomit, check him out, ask me some questions, and then leave to go order more tests. This went on for six hours. Six long, long hours...

Now, at this point, I will admit I think I started to crack. I had been awake for almost 26 hours straight, except for a 30 minute cat-nap at home. I was running on fumes and wanted nothing more than sleep. The doctors finally decided to leave it up to me on whether or not we should be admitted back into the hospital, but given that G was still vomiting blood and it had taken two doses of IV meds to get him to stop and they still had no real clear idea of what was causing all this, I gladly elected to call BCH our home for the night. Around six in the morning, they got a room ready and G and I passed out for a few hours. 

In the end, the drama seems to have been caused by the stent being removed and causing the kidney to swell, cutting off the kidneys function temporarily.  He was hospitalized for two days and after ensuring that his kidneys were functioning normally and getting the vomiting under control, we were released and sent on our merry way. 

Who says kidneys aren't exciting?

In rock, paper, scissors, kidneys win.

There are some times when you would rather not remember what happened the day or even the week before.  Most of those times, they involved lots of tequila, and don't tell me I'm the only one, but last week... No tequila, just a kidney. I have a bit to recap, since it's been a while since I've posted and I honestly was thinking that I would not want to post about our 'adventures' last week, but I'm hoping getting it out of my head may purge it from memory.  So, here goes.

After all the tests were said and done, it was found that G had a utero pelvic junction obstruction, or in those fancy medical letters, a UPJ obstruction. The only fix for this obstruction was, you guessed it, more surgery. AD, on the other hand, got off easy with a diagnosis of Grade 3 bilateral kidney reflux. Her likelihood of surgery is about 50/50 right now, so we'll wait to see what happens. We met with the surgeon at the local children's hospital, but since he only did the surgery in the 'traditional' method, we opted to go to Boston Children's Hospital instead and have it done robotically. Here's your biology lesson for the day! A UPJ obstruction is caused when a piece of the tube leading from the kidney to the bladder stops growing and becomes narrow. This causes the fluid in the kidney to drain slowly and in turn, causes the kidney to swell. After more tests, we discovered that his right kidney drained in about 9 minutes, while his left kidney was taking over 136 minutes to drain. The surgeon later told me that it probably takes longer than that, but they gave up after 136 minutes. Poor kidney even disappoints the doctors.

When we went for the initial consult in Boston, we met with a great doctor and G was this close to having the procedure as an outpatient operation, but the surgeon suddenly recalled that our G is a past-cardiac patient which meant that he'd be treated to an overnight stay, just in case. Aw, shucks, as G would say. So, we scheduled G for surgery for early March. We had the pre-op testing on March 6, and other than just getting over a cold that day, he passed with flying colors. Fast forward to just 36 hours before surgery and the hospital calls to tell us that the surgeon that was supposed to perform the pyeloplasty on G has left the hospital and all surgeries are being rescheduled. You know, I'm a silver lining type of gal, but I'll admit I was annoyed that we were pushed off, again! G's open-heart surgery was delayed because of pneumonia and fifth disease and now the surgeon leaves BCH? The nurse assured me that they had another surgeon lined up that specialized in robotic surgery and we went ahead and rescheduled the date for March 30.

The surgery lasted only an hour or so, if I remember correctly. Seems strange now to forget the exact details, but there you have it. Probably because everything else paled in comparison to his awful recovery. The surgeon came in to tell us that G did great, they didn't find anything out of the ordinary and were able to place a stent in his ureter to keep the tubes open while they healed. The nurse led us to the recovery area and we were able to sit with him while he woke up. At first, he was groggy, but the more he woke up, the more miserable he became. He complained of pain non-stop and cried for me to hold him and carry him. After about 30 minutes of trying to calm him, I climbed into the hospital bed with him and we managed, with all his tubes and wires, to have him lay on me in his bed for a few hours. The nurse had to call for additional morphine and Valium to help with his pain, but it finally did subside and they were able to get him out of recovery and into a room.

Sky Burger, again?!

G is one of those kids that has a rather large personal space bubble around him, so the fact that he wanted me to hold him for hours was unusual but post-op boy can have whatever post-op boy wants. When we made it to our room, we set-up camp for the day and got as comfortable as you can in a hospital. This time around, we booked a hotel room down the street, so I made myself a little bed on the window seat and TDH Man went and got some food. Ironically, we were in the same room location as G's CICU room at BCH, just a few floors away. We set up his personal TV and let him loose on the remote and PBS. He fought sleep for a long time, but what else is there to do in the hospital?

Puffy, tired boy demands PBS. 

Looking back now, G's stay was fairly unremarkable. I only say this because I'm writing it a few months later and I honestly can't remember much of it. Blame Mommy-brain, blame all the hospital trips blurring into one, blame whatever, but we were pretty much dismissed the next day, given instructions on how to care for our boy and sent on our merry way. During the surgery, the doctor had placed a stent in the kidney to assist in keeping the repaired tube open. We were told that the stent would need to be removed in about three to four weeks, but that it was a simple procedure and not to worry about it. 

Ha. That should have sent all those red flags a-flyin', but that's another story for another post.