Wenesday, 2:29pm

Well, he's out of surgery and resting. We have a name, although I have no idea what it all entails yet: "Non-neuropathic neuropathic bladder" aka "Hinman's". Let me start by saying I KNOW NOTHING YET. But, based on what they've told me:

1) It's really rare.
2) It is often related to either spinal issues like spina bifida, or extreme stress in the household. The surgeon off-handedly mentioned that if there are no spinal issues, it may be related to how Rory processed Rob's military deployments. They want to do an MRI to rule out a spinal cause, such as a tumor.
3) Basically, the bladder contracts (as if it were signalling to urinate) and stays that way. Meaning, LP really, truly couldn't tell when he needed to go. This contraction in turn, caused the fluid to back up into his kidneys and caused the damage.
4) The pediatric urologist put it at 95% likelihood of needing a kidney transplant. He couldn't give a timeframe, obvisously, but he told us it would be "sooner, rather than later."

So, course of action: they'll send him home (eventually) with the catheter he has now...the external one. In a couple of weeks, we'll bring him back and they'll do the catheter through the belly button thing. That's what we've decided is best for LP's temperment. There is a slight....slight chance that with this relief, the bladder could learn how to properly function, but this wasn't discussed for long and I'm not holding out much hope at this point. However, it would at least keep the fluid from going into his kidneys again.

From now, we do maintenance on his kidneys, monitor them to see how much kidney function will return with time on the meds, and go from there. Sometime in our future, there WILL be dialysis and there WILL be a transplant. But, I hold out hope that after transplant, he'll be a normal, happy, healthy kidlet...who happens to pee through his belly, LOL.

I'm going to try to do more research. I'll post what I find later on.