Christian's UIHC visit 6/8

Christian was 5 months old yesterday. We got to spend the day at UIHC for doctor's visits. Charlie, Colton, Christian and I all made the trip to Iowa City. Caleb and Ria spent the day with Grandma Lori. We had a kidney/bladder ultrasound, hip x ray, urology dr visit and orthopedic dr visit.

Christian's kidney's look good, his bladder wall is thicker than Dr Cooper says it should be. He said this is probably because Christian works so hard to go so the muscle is building up. I asked about the thickness compared to the last testing and he said it is about the same. We are to go back on the ditropan. It is a low dose (1 mL twice a day) so he said that we shouldn't have to cath for right now. Christian does so good 'going' on his own. During the ultrasound his bladder was empty or close to it and he had just ate an hour before the test.
We asked about a different solution to the consitpation instead of the KERO syrup since it is so sugary. We are going to start on miralax which they said is completely safe to use for long periods of time. This is a powder that we will mix and then give him with his milk.
We also asked about the groin hernia and Dr Cooper gave us the pros and cons to doing the surgery now or waiting until Christian is a little older. Christian has the groin hernia on one side and the dr's also said he has a hydroseal which is fluid that is getting down into the scrotum. Charlie and I both agree that the pro's outway the cons as one of the cons is that there is always a chance that a piece of the bowel could get caught down in the hernia and die and then it would be emergency surgery. We are going to schedule the surgery here in Des Moines so that we will be close to home. I had a consult with the surgeon almost a month ago but wanted to get Dr Cooper's take before we went forward.

Christian's hips also look great! The doctor was pretty backed up, our appt was at 2:30 but we didn't get seen until 4:30 which was quite a long wait. (gave me a change to pump, call mom and get a breathe of fresh air.) Dr Morcuende said that Christian looks great and that we will continue to monitor him. I asked about his right leg that is turned outward all the time and he said that hopefully with continued exercise, etc it will correct itself. If not, we will do a series of bracing to help it. For now, he is not concerned though.

We go back in 3-4 months. As of right now, none of our appts are scheduled as I am going to try to coordinate as many as we can on the same day (neuro, ortho, and uro). Although it makes for a long day, hopefully we can get at least two appts in.