Apparently, that's the question with Hayden, whose poor little body can't seem to figure out which way to send fluids. Instead of going down, down, down as they are supposed to, her body wants to send things back up. Up is not supposed to be an option. Up is not cool.
In addition to gastrointestinal reflux, which she was diagnosed with at several months old, she now potentially has vesicoureteral reflux, also known as kidney reflux. Many people are familiar with GERD, where fluids from the stomach travel back up the esophagus, causing pain, inflammation and damage. We've been treating her GERD for months now, and with a recent adjustment in medications, seem to finally have that under control and she seems to be sleeping and feeling much better.
That is, until this past week when she began spiking very high fevers - 104, 103 range fevers - with no other apparent symptoms except not acting very spunky and wanting to cuddle more than normal. After several days with no change, we went back to trusty ol' Dr. V, who ordered the usual round of checks - strep, urinalysis, flu, eye, ear, sinus - and all came back negative. Hmmm... That's different. So, off we trotted to the hospital for a SUPER FUN blood draw. And when I say SUPER FUN, I mean holding-the-baby-down, tying-a-tourniquet-on-her-arm, letting-her-scream-bloody-murder, watching-a-nurse-jab-her-while-repeatedly-failing-to-find-a-vein kind of fun. You know, that sort of lovely family moment every new mom envisions sharing with her sweet babe. Got the results that night, which were that her white blood count and inflammation levels were elevated, so they wanted to start her on antibiotics ASAP and talk to us the next day to review the more detailed urine culture results and make plans.
So the next day, with indications pointing toward a urinary tract infection (UTI), still some fever, although much better, got the news that Dr. V wanted us to go back to the hospital AGAIN to have some more FUN with the bloodsuckers to see if the white counts or inflammation had improved. More baby-tackling, holy-hell-screaming, sweet-baby-flesh-piercing fun. GAH.
All the while, I'm still not exactly sure what we're getting at. Not sure why I'm torturing my child so, or why we're on antibiotics really, since we weren't really sure about the UTI. She hadn't yet mentioned the kidney reflux, so I was getting increasingly worried and frustrated.
Fast forward to today. I got a call just before lunch that explained a lot, and opened up many new questions and concerns. First of all, Hayden has a kidney, bladder and UT infection. That's the cause of the fever, white counts and inflammation. The antibiotics we're using are treating it, and she appears to be responding. We'll touch base Monday to follow up, and go back Wednesday for another urinalysis to be sure. Learned that they want to check her to see about this kidney reflux deal, so we'll be headed to Scottish Rite later this month to do some invasive, and at the very least, extremely irritating (to Hayden anyway) tests to see if she does have it, and if so, how severe.
I am trying not to be overly concerned. It's apparently not totally uncommon, and is treatable, and hopefully in Hayden's case, caught quickly. The concerning part is that even small amounts of kidney damage at this age can cause lifelong problems, and I am hoping that we have gotten her help soon enough to prevent most of that.
So, for now, it's more hurry up and wait, and while Chris is busy teaching Hayden her ABC's, I'm going to try to figure out if I can't teach her body North from South...
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