Vesicoureteral Reflux

Lily Bean has fully recovered from her urinary track infection, but it is not normal for a 7 month old baby to have a UTI. Her provider at KIRK thought we needed to do some tests to make sure there wasn't a reason for the infection, so she put in for a renal ultrasound and a VCUG (voiding cystourethrogram.) It was very scary taking my tiny baby to have invasive tests and the thought that something could be wrong with her was a little over whelming. As we walked through the hospital every person who saw her smiled at her and stopped to talk to her tell me how beautiful she was. She was such a big girl!

We did the ultrasound first, but the technician couldn't tell me anything about what it looked like. I took that as a good sign, if her kidneys looked bad wouldn't the tech freak out and get a doctor? The VCUG was the test we where scared of, she would need to be catheterized and have some contrasting liquid put into her bladder and then have X-rays taken as the liquid flows through her bladder and the tubes that connect everything. It went as smoothly as it could have, she cried a while, then fell asleep, then fussed a while.

The big news came when the technician saw something on her pictures and got a doctor. After he looked at them and took a few more he came back to tell me Lily had reflux. It took me back a minute, reflux? she stopped spitting up months ago. But that was just me breathing out after the stress of the tests.
Lily has grade 0 vesicoureteral reflux on one side. Basically a small amount of urine is flowing back up the tube from her bladder to her kidneys. It is not happening all the time or when she pees, but every once in a while and low pressure, so it is not flowing hard or far, but some urine is refluxing. If we don't treat this, or had not caught it she could keep getting infections and/or cause damage to her kidneys. The good news is, now we can go see a urologist and she will most likely out grow the problem when her urethra grows and fixes whatever defect she has, which she was born with. The most common way to treat this is to give her a low level of antibiotics every day and do another VCUG until the reflux problem is gone. Giving her antibiotics everyday comes along with it's own set or risks for Lily Bean, but constant UTIs can cause permanent kidney damage, and well she can't live without those.

So this is where we stand. Monday we will get the official report from the hospital and get our referral for the urologist to set up Lily's treatment plan and get more information. I am trying to gather information on our own, on her new situation, and start the praying for this to be simple and not cause any further problems for my precious little Lily Bean.

Interestingly when I was a toddler I had similar problems. My mother said I was always damp, leaking even I didn't need to pee. This is a congenital defect (more common in red heads for some strange reason) giving siblings a 37% to also have it. I had an outpatient procedure done when I was 3 and I never had any problems outside of that. So smooth I don't even remember the problem, except that I got a candy bar after the procedure.

Hey there big brother! Just got this cute picture of Johnny today and wanted to share it.