As usual for us when we have a school break I took the opportunity to fill it with medical appointments. The Wednesday after Christmas the girls and I had our teeth cleaned and then Thursday Kate had to go up to Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital for a sweat test to check her for cystic fibrosis.
The test was pretty weird. They needed to collect her sweat so they hooked up both her arms to these little electrodes and sort of shocked her for 5 minutes (it looked like a small torture device but she assured me it didn't hurt). Then they placed these little cups on top of the same area, wrapped it up and we had to wait for 30 minutes for her to sweat.
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| Waiting for the sweat! |
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| Collection cups |
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| Might as well get a snack! |
Kate did great and pretty soon we were on our way home -
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| Those suckers were on there pretty tight! |
Then on Friday morning we had to leave our house at 4:30 am to get Kate to the new Nemours Children's Hospital for her scheduled scope of her bladder. It was a long morning but Kate did great and we actually got some news. They were able to find the source of her bleeding that is causing her to bleed into her urine. Her doctor is now testing her urine to see if the source is bleeding due to infection or for some other reason. He will have a treatment plan for us when we go back for our two week post op check up.
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| In the car after surgery - still really groggy from the anesthesia :) Not thrilled about the photo op :) |
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Coincidentally, Savannah had been up most of the night in horrible pain from a headache that even motrin and tylenol would not relieve. She ended up throwing up several times as well so Mike took her into our Urgent Care Clinic and they discovered she had a sinus infection. Poor girl! So we all ended up getting home about lunch time and the girls decided to spend the afternoon watching movies.
Owen thinks he is sick too so he's checking his temp to be sure :) Nemours gave Kate that sweet Teddy bear for being such a good patient! Hopefully a day of rest will do us all some good.
Once we got home and got settled in I heard from Kate's doctor that ordered her sweat test and we got good news! She does not have cystic fibrosis!!! Yay! I think that unless you have a child with major medical problems it is difficult to understand how scary and frustrating and just plain sad it is to see your child have to endure all of these procedures and tests and to have to wait and wonder what the results are going to be. But every time I get to the point where I am just completely angry about it I am always humbled by the other families I see at these clinics and hospitals whose children are far sicker than mine and I am just so thankful that Kate is able to lead a relatively normal life!!!
