Monday, 3pm

Okay, so today has been hard.

LP went for his ultrasound and there was no change. He's basically just as damaged now as he is when he got here on Thursday. I was truly surprised, since I was expecting SOME kind of improvement. But no.

So, the radioactive bladder thingy has been cancelled until tomorrow, when the Urologist himself can be here, and not just the Urology Fellow. We tried to give Little Pom his morning medication and it was a HUGE battle- as usual. It took 90 minutes to get 3 pills into him. This has been happening twice a day the entire time we've been here. People have been asking, "aren't there ways to make it easier" and the answer is yes....but we can't. It doesn't do him any good if he's getting all of his medication via IV, and then won't take it when we go home. He's gotta get used to taking it *now*. Today, I lost the plot and basically sat and cried while the doctor and the daddy tried to get the life-saving little miracles down his cranky, stubborn throat. It's just so hard to expend all this energy FIGHTING HIM to save his life. Who cares if it tastes yucky...if it keeps you alive? But he's 8, and doesn't think like that.

It's also been a hard day for news. Tomorrow, when they do the Radioactive-Bladder-Thingy, the Urology team will look for any obstructions and hopefully figure out a way to remove them Meaning: possible surgery. If there are not obstructions, then we have to consider sending LP home with a sort of "self service" catheter- one that he either inserts through his penis every 2-3 hours, or else a system that will allow his appendix to serve as a sort of auxilary bladder, which would then be drained on the same time schedule, through a valve in his belly button. At the moment, if we would need to make this decision, we're leaning towards the latter option since it seems like one he'd fight over less at home. Can't imagine trying to convince him to shove something in his penis 8-12x a day, when he won't even swallow a pill now. Any comments, thoughts, insights, advice you might have for us would be appreciated.

They've told us a bit more about his condition. It's called Obstructive Nephropathy and you can read more about it here: http://renux.dmed.ed.ac.uk/edren/EdRenINFObits/Obstruction.html
Keep in mind though, that BOTH of Rory's kidneys look like "the kidney on the right." He also has hydronephrosis, which is a part of the Obstructive Nephropathy. You can see what that is all about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydronephrosis. Basically, his kidneys are WAY, WAY bad....and dialysis *is* a part of his future. We just don't know when. It was described today as an "eventuality."

So, that's the news so far. I don't think I'll have another update today-- maybe a report about how well we do with meds tonight.

Post comments- for me, for Rory. We'll be sure to pass them along.