Another ER visit

A boy and his dog

So comfy near my puppy-girl

Notice the blinks. Every time he is near Laney and she barks or comes near him, Zach gets his eyes blinking so fast.

But, just like the other 2, he is in love with the puppy! He couldn't be happier playing with the dog.

These pictures don't exactly fit the blog I'm writing about, but I had to post them--they are too sweet. Zach was just chillin' with the dog the other day, really checking her out. I don't know which of our kiddos loves Laney most!! We feel pretty blessed that she is such a great dog with the kids, too! Always so patient with them, and very cautious. She also respects their toys and leaves them alone, even though they are usually strung across the house. What a sweet doggie!!

Ok, now on the the ER post. Zachary had his post-surgery follow-up visit with the urologist on Friday. At that appointment, they "sounded" his urethra, which meant inserting a metal rod inside. Yes, ouch! In fact, they used 2 different sized rods, one slightly larger than the other. Because they had to reconstruct his urethra, they needed to make sure the opening was still healing as it should, it wasn't re-routing to its old position, and the scar tissue wasn't getting in the way of urination (or building up internally). It was pretty quick, and slightly painful, but he was over it in a matter of seconds really. That night he was fine. Then, during the night, he woke up every 45 minutes to an hour crying in a very painful cry. I assumed it was gas, or maybe even some teething issues as he has been pretty droolly lately. He had a poopy diaper at 4 and I changed it in the dark, but he screamed thru it all. In the morning, we realized why all the screaming. His little "peanut" (a term the other 2 have been using) had nearly tripled in size!! He was also running a slight fever and seemed so uncomfortable. We did what we could for him, and I called the urologist office (of course, it was a Saturday). They paged the nurse, who promptly returned my call. She wasn't sure that sounded right, so she had the on-call urologist call me (not our doc). He listened to the story and told me what it could have been, possible a tear in the internal skin covering his urethra causing the urine to go into the surrounding tissue. Of course, he said it was hard to diagnose over the phone (understandably), and that he suggested we go in to the ER, downtown. He called ahead for us and told them we were coming (a huge bonus for us!!). We visited the Children's Mercy ER downtown, not the closer one, South, because there was an on-call urologist resident there. The triage nurse agreed that it did NOT look good. Then the resident gets in there, and boy was he totally GREEN!! He asked us if that looked different than normal. I laughed and said, yes, it was definitely bigger. He felt around and thankfully said his bladder was soft, which is a good sign b/c he was retaining those fluids (one of the biggest issues I was worried about, possible kidney problems due to this). He wasn't sure what to do, so told us he was going to call Dr. Murphy (our urologist). He came back in and told us Dr. M said to just just soak it 4 X a day in warm water and gave us an antibiotic just in case an infection developed. He asked us if that was ok--like I said, green!! Although they didn't do much for us, we were happy we went, in case they had to put in a catheter or do anything else.

It is much better with each passing day. Dr. Murphy did personally call me on Monday to check on him. He wants to see us in a couple of weeks to confirm that all is doing well with little Z man. Our poor little baby just can't catch a break! To think, he is a healthy baby. I can't imagine doing this more with an unhealthy baby!! We aren't supposed to go back to the doctor until Oct. 1 for his 9 month check. Hmmmmmmm............wonder if we can wait that long! We sure have been to the doctor a LOT in the last month. A little prayer: Thank you God for providing us good insurance. That is one thing we aren't stressing about with all the chaos! Thank you, thank you!!!

So, we have had 2 ER visits in the last 3 months. 2 out of 3 kids have gone. If I'd had to guess, I really would have thought Calvin would have been the one. Let's just be thankful he hasn't had to go yet.

Update: 1 hour later, another doctor visit scheduled! Well, sort of.....Our PT lady is coming out to re-evaluate Zachary for services thru Infant/Toddler. He has fallen on the fence (in questionable range) 2 out of 2 times now. She wants to see him for herself, b/c she was on maternity leave last evaluation. So, we shall see how that goes on Monday. At least it is here at the house. It doesn't stay quiet around here for long :)