Natalie Update

Well, I'm not doing very good at going backwards to catch up on blogging. I wanted to go ahead and post about Natalie's urology appointment today. It was a normal check up that they do every few months. This time they did a procedure to check the bladder capacity. We were really anxious to hear the results. Good news--it's growing! She's up to 1 oz. capacity. (Normal for her age would be around 3.5 oz). The fact that she's growing at all is encouraging. We just gotta keep it going.

She still has reflux (back flow from the bladder) into the kidneys but since she hasn't had any infections in almost a year it isn't too much of a concern.

She's finally going off the antibiotics but we will still cath her once a day for a couple more months.

The doctor said her bladder looks healthy and other than the smaller size it looks like a "normal" bladder.

We were really pleased with all the news. Yeah!

So, for now we just need two things:

1. continue to be infection free

2. keep that bladder growing

If all continues to go well the next phase of things will be around age 4 or 5 to see how well she can stay dry on her own. She will continue to have regular check ups along the way.

I felt bad for Natalie during the procedure today. She was completely strapped down with her arms above her head. Not very fun. It took a long time (some unexpected delays...blah blah blah). She was a trooper but still cried on and off. Sometimes I could be in the room with her, other times not. In some ways it was better for me just to stay out because when I would come in she would start crying and want me to pick her up but I couldn't. That's always the worst part of things. She LOVES Elmo and fortunately they had an Elmo toy to help entertain her. We won't have to worry about doing this again for another year or so. Meanwhile, grow bladder, grow.