Sunday Morning Update

Okay, first of all- Bubbles went home yesterday. His stepmom and some other woman came to pick him up & we managed to exchange contact info with them. So now we have parent names, home address & phone and Bubbles birthday. You know, to stay in touch and whatever else we may need it for. The stepmom was telling us all about how she can't ever visit him because she works 3rd shift. I had to bite my tongue from pointing out that this should make it *easier* because she's awake when the kids are out of school. But I didn't want to seem hostile. She also said that his dad slipped & broke his ankle yesterday "on the way here to visit." It was awfully convenient timing, and didn't really explain where they've been the REST of the week. But, Bubbles got dressed, gave us hugs and rode off into the sunset in his little blue hospital wagon. We did have one little moment where I'd asked him "are you happy you're going home?" And his little eyes welled up and he shook his head no. Then he saw his stepmom looking at him and started nodding instead. It broke my heart.

Little Pom cried himself to sleep last night because he missed Bubbles. LP had a busy day yesterday too. We've started dialysis and it seems to work pretty well (Important kidney number was 3.6 last they told us)...but that's WHEN it works. We've been having issues with the drainage part of the process. Basically, the dialysis machine is supposed to fill LP's abdominal cavity with sterile fluid, let it sit for a certain amount of time, drain the fluid out and repeat. This should happen quite a number of times over the course of 10 hours, depending upon the "dwell time" (the sit time) that the doctors decide on. For Little Pom the first two phases go fine, but we've been having issues every, single night when it comes to draining the fluid back out. Yesterday, they did an x-ray to confirm that the PD catheter was placed correctly- it is. Then they did a renal ultrasound to see if that gave them any info. His bladder (without the catheter, remember) is retaining fluid again- about 1/2 a liter- and the thought was that it might be putting pressure on the PD catheter and not allowing it to work properly. So, last night LP had another Folely Catheter put in. They have him a tiny bit of morphine and a great deal of Versed but he was awake & screaming the whole time. On the bright side, Daddy says it was still the easiest of the (now 4 or 5, I've lost count) catheter insertions.

So, the kidlet has a tube coming out of his abdomen and a tube coming out of his penis. Daddy says that the Urology surgeons were in briefly this morning & we might end up doing the Mitrofinoff (sp?) Catheter after all. That's the permanant one that drains through the belly button. But we don't really know yet, because even with the foley in, the dialysis fluid last night still wasn't draining well. So....we have a mystery wrapped in an enigma, shrouded in the form of an eight year old boy. Eventually, I'm sure dialysis will be a wonderful thing for us. But we gotta figure out how to make it work first.

More later.