A Step in the Right Direction

We went to Texas Children's last Wednesday for Mitchell to have some blood work done. As usual, they were checking his Creatinine level (which is a good measure for kidney function) and his electrolytes, particularly his CO2 level (which tells us whether his Renal Tubular Acidosis is under control.) It is always a bit nervewracking when we go in for a blood draw; some people are just better than others at drawing blood. You can imagine my joy, then, when the woman who drew Mitch's blood did such a great job that Mitch didn't even cry! He just smiled at her as she filled the tube. The great news is that the numbers came back normal. His Creatinine was .3 and his CO2 was 24.

While we were sitting in the waiting area of the lab, I saw the head nurse of the Renal department. She is so great. (Actually, the whole Renal group is really nice, which is important because we're in touch with them a lot.) She came over to see Mitch, and I was lamenting the fact that Urology couldn't get his renal ultrasound scheduled until March 2. She said, "Let me see what I can do." Sure enough, I got a phone call a couple hours later, and now Mitch is scheduled for his ultrasound on Feb. 12th. This is a big deal because it will show us any change to the kidney. Our biggest worry is that the reflux that was happening in the bad right kidney will start happening to the left. Our urologist seemed to think that that would not happen, but we still have to make sure it isn't happening. So, we'll go on Friday for the ultrasound, and then we meet with Mitch's Urologist on 2/16. If all looks normal (well, as normal as it did before the surgery), Mitch will be able to stop taking the Bactrim (antibiotic prophylaxis). We recently also weaned him off the Prevacid, which means, if we get the ok, we'll have gone from three meds to one! The one medication he is still on is the Bicitra, which is essentially Sodium Bicarbonate, used to treat the Acidosis. There is a good chance he'll be on that for the rest of his life. If, at the end of the day, that is all he has to deal with, I'll be so happy. He takes it three times a day, mixed with a little formula. It's a routine we're all used to by now.

Besides the medical side of our sweet boy's life, he's finally moved past the army crawl and is legitimately crawling. He's also babbling a ton, and we're hearing the first markings of "Dada." Isn't that always the way it goes? Dad gets the credit!!

I hope our next update will be all positive news. We would appreciate your thoughts and prayers this week as we prepare for this ultrasound. We hope everyone is surviving this recent snow dumping. As I type this, our lawn guy is outside doing our lawn. Gotta love Texas in February!