Charis' Appointment

The next day, I took Charis for her appointment at a children's hospital in Norfolk, VA. The appointment went by really quickly. But poor Charis. She was miserable every step of the way...except for in the waiting room before she realized she was actually in a doctor's office. We went straight to the ultrasound room for a "renal ultrasound." They wanted to get front and back ultrasound pictures of her kidneys. You would have thought we were sticking needles all over the child. :( She fought and screamed the ENTIRE TIME. The technician finally said, "Maybe we better call in someone to help." I picked Charis up when she stepped out of the room and Charis was a sweaty mess! She was so worked up. Then I had to lay her down on the bed again - I held down her upper body and another nurse held down her legs. They said at least two times, "She sure is strong!" because we were literally holding down her tiny body as hard as we could without squishing her, and she was STILL pushing her body up off the bed!

I had to use the bathroom after the ultrasound
and I took this picture of us in the mirror.
Poor baby...

THEN. We were immediately taken to an x-ray room. The technician prepped me for everything that was going to happen, which, thankfully, I already knew everything because I've talked to Charis' doctor a few times about it and received a letter in the mail from the hospital about it. She had a VCUG - basically, here is what happened. I changed her into a hospital gown (a princess dress complete with a princess sticker to go on her dress), the technician came in and asked me to lay her down on an elevated board on the x-ray table. The board had "seatbelts" on it, and they strapped her upper body down to the board. (By the way, as soon as the lady came in the room, Charis started crying. And continued to cry and scream the entire time, minus a span of about a minute during the procedure.) Once she was strapped down, they hurried to insert a catheter (this was the point when mommy started crying too because her cry turned to a SCREAM and I knew she was in pain.) As soon as the catheter was in, the radiologist came in, asked them to make a slight adjustment to the catheter based on the image he was looking at on the screen, then they started injecting (? I guess that's the right word?) the dye through the catheter into Charis' bladder. He then turned Charis (remember she's lying on the elevated board which turns left to right) to get all the pictures he wanted. They then encouraged Charis to urinate by pouring warm water over her, and he took lots more pictures as she urinated. Finally, I could pick Charis up off of that table and comfort her! It seemed like it lasted thirty minutes, but from start to finish, it really only lasted 15 minutes. They came in not long after she was dressed and said that initial results looked good, and that no urine flowed back into the bladder as she urinated which is what they were most worried about. I still haven't heard the full report from Charis' pediatrician, but I'm guessing no news is good news. After giving them a full week and a day, I will call tomorrow to request a thorough over-the-phone report. Thankfully, she got over the ordeal really quickly. Even told the technicians "thank you" as we left. By the time we got in the car, she was back to her happy little self! We hurried home to Bubba and Grammy who gave Charis lots of special lovin' to make up for her ordeal that morning.

So sweaty and snuggly! :(