Medical Update

Monday we had Daniel's fluoroscopy tests to recheck his bladder and kidney and to see if there was anymore reflux. This was a sedated test and I have to admit that Daniel was quite hilarious under the sedation. He never fell completely asleep, but I don't think he remembers a thing, which I am glad.

At one point during the test, he's laying on the table and I'm on one side and a nurse is one the other side of his head and he looks over at her and says all slurred and in slow motion "Are you my grandma?" She says "no, but I do need you to go ahead and go pee-pee now". And no joke he says to her "Then I'm not talking to you." And he slowly looks over to me and says "Mama, you are Elmo and I'm the Cookie Monster." How we went from one to the other is beyond me, but I was glad for the comic relief!

So the results from the test were that there was still a slight amount of reflux, but because Daniel's bladder is so large and it takes so long to fill, the techs tend to overfill and it forces reflux. In essence, they consider it a slight amount of reflux, but they can't be 100% sure, so as it stands right now, no further surgery is required.

His kidney is still functioning well and in the doctor's word he can "See the improvement". This was big for us, because normally they say it may be slightly better, but they can't tell, etc.etc. So for him to actually say that he can see the difference made me really happy!

Finally, we do have further tests in 6-9 months to study Daniel's bladder more. Each time I post that Daniel has stopped having accidents, he starts again. More so it's really just a leakage problem due to the size of his bladder and the fact that we can' tell how much feeling Daniel has when his bladder is full. Couple that with the age factor and that children prioritize differently than adults (as in toys over potty) we have kind of a mixed bag of issues.

I hit the doctor pretty hard this time with questions pertaining to long term and school, so they agreed that the further tests will give us new readings to look at and we can talk then about further care. We really want Daniel to be able to achieve total continence, so we'll do whatever they suggest.

For now we've purchased a Wobl Watch which is a medical watch that vibrates to remind him to go potty to give me a permanent break from constantly watching the clock and reminding him to go potty. This has been a struggle at times, as he started to eventually defy me with not going to the potty and then I had to start time outs for not listening, refusing to go etc. and was making myself and Daniel, I'm sure, miserable.

Since he's starting summer camp with children his own age and older, we thought the vibrating watch would be discreet enough and it looks like a regular old watch. The instructors are aware and know that if he runs for the potty in the middle of an activity to just let him go and encouraeg him, not stop him.

We're hoping being around older children may push him to try a little harder also. We've noticed when he's out in public he tends to not leak, whereas at home, where he is most comfortable, he lets go (no pun intended).

We had really hoped we would be at the end of this by now, but we'll just take it as it comes and be thankful that it's not something life threatening or more serious.

Please continue to pray for healing for the bladder and left kidney.

Pre-school, Kindergarten, Medical, Oh My!

Wow - I'm way overdue to post on this blog and so much has happened in the last month that at this point I'm not even sure where that month went.

Thankfully I've finished tax season at work, with the exception of finalizing all the returns we extended, but at least it's not a mad rush anymore!

During our ever busy tax season, in which I worked so much overtime, including several Saturdays and from home, we had a bit of a pre-school day care issue. Daniel's pre-school is considered skill based and they move the children up based on their reading abilities. Daniel started out in the Beginner Class last April. In order to move to the Advanced class, the children have to pass their letters which are given to them in sets of 5. The class ranges in age from 3-5, but mostly contains 3-4 year olds. Daniel was 3 and 1/2 so we thought this was perfect. A few months later, I contacted the school with concerns that Daniel had not passed the first 5 letters. They assured me everything was fine and a few weeks later he passed. Then about 6 weeks after he passed the second set. Then nothing.



Fast forward to about 2 months ago and I started questioning the pre-school again as to why Daniel had not passed the third set. We'd been working really hard everyday on the letters at home and Daniel was flying through the entire alphabet. To make a long story short, after going round and round for 2 months, including me going in and watching a lesson, I got the director to agree to test him and in one day he passed 10 more letters. On to the last set...no pass. I waited a week to give the benefit of the doubt and still nothing. Finally I asked the director to test him again and she said he mixed up about 5 of the previous lower case letters when they did the entire alphabet review. In toher words, he passed the final set, but when they gave him 52 letters to identify (they split lower and upper case) he confused 5 of them.

5 out of 52. Isn't that like a "B"? Isn't this pre-school? Are we applying to Harvard or Yale at this point? My main concern was getting him into a class where he wasn't bored out of his mind and with children his own age.


Even after emailing them and offering to continue the work at home on those 5 letters, they refused to move him.


After much debate, Troy and I decided to pull him. We realized he just wasn't going to mature in time for Kindergarten if he was forced to hang out with 3 and young 4 year olds day in and day out.


He has 5 days left and then he is sprung! He'll be spending about 6 weeks (3 days a week) with family members, until he starts....


SUMMER DAY CAMP!!


We're really excited about this! It's through a martial arts center and he'll get 2 classes a week on karate! They also go out each day whether to the park or to the local police stations, fire stations, Lowes, you name it!! They get to play dodge ball, kick ball, have water gun fights, arts and crafts, and lots of organized fun. He'll be with children his own age and a bit older. The director assured me he would come home exhausted every day! This boy is the Energizer Bunny so I was happy to hear this - it's just what he needs on the days I work!

As for Kindergarten, I've visited two different schools and we'll be applying for one outside of district but closer to our home. We're praying Daniel gets in there.

Finally we have a large medical appointment for Daniel Monday that I'm dreading. It involves sedation, a cathedar and lots of imaging. I'll get to be with him the whole time weighted down in the heavy lead gowns, but with him nonetheless. Please continue to pray for his bladder and kidney to continue to heal. I dread telling him about the appointment since he understands so much more now.

And finally, finally...we celebrated our 3rd anniversary of our court date on April 15th and our 3rd Gotcha Day on April 16th! Our final PPR read that we "have satisfied both our state and the Russian Federation requirements" for our adoption. I almost cried when I read the last line!!

Life may be extremely busy, but it's good!