Update on Tanner

What a long day! Thought I would write an update on here about what went on today.

BACKGROUND

For those of you who do not know, when I was 21 weeks pregnant and having my "big ultrasound", they saw that the baby's right kidney had multi-cysts and was enlarged. I had to go for many follow up ultrasounds to check the baby's kidneys. What was told to us in the beginning was that it looked like it was a genetic kidney disease, but since it was just 1 kidney, that was a good thing. At my 28 week ultrasound, the report showed that BOTH kidneys were enlarged and had cysts. We were told it was 1 of 2 things: 1) Auto-recessive Polycystic kidney disease, which is a genetic disease and most likely means dialysis/kidney transplant, or 2) Multicystic Dysplastic kidney, which means the kidneys didn't form correctly. If this is in 1 kidney, that is fine, b/c you can live a totally normal and healthy life with just 1 kidney. However, if it's both kidneys not formed correctly, this is something that is not compatible with life. Needless to say, after hearing that report, we went through probably the hardest emotional week of our lives. Many many prayers were being prayed for our little baby. We were referred to a Pediatric Urologist 2 weeks later and had a very thorough ultrasound, and the result of that was: The left kidney is a perfectly beautiful functioning kidney :) But the right one just never developed properly. It was Multi-cystic dysplastic kidney, but since it's only 1 kidney, we were told that really, if we hadn't had an ultrasound ever, we probably would never have known in our child's whole life that they only had 1 kidney. They told us that they wanted to check the baby after it was born, at around 1 month.

TODAY:

Tanner had a few different procedures done today. The first was a repeat ultrasound of the kidneys. What this showed today, was that 1) his right kidney which had the cysts is smaller...this is GREAT. This is what needs to happen, and 2) the good left kidney has gotten bigger which is another AWESOME thing that needed to happen, to show that the left kidney is compensating for the non-functioning one. The urologist was very happy to see this, and we will go for a follow up ultrasound in 6 months just to check it again.

The 2nd procedure Tanner had done was to check if there was any reflux in the good kidney (meaning, stuff from the bladder going back up into the kidney). In people with Multi-cystic Dysplastic Kidney, you have a 1 in 4 chance of having reflux. Well, Tanner is that 1 in 4 person (seriously, this little guy better be the best behaved teenager, after all we are going through with him now, lol!!) However, the dr said that it is a very "low grade" reflux and in 80% of this low grade kind, it goes away on it's own, not requiring surgery. He really wasn't too concerned, and said he had never done surgery on this level of reflux. So we are praying and believing that it WILL go away on it's own.

Tanner was SUCH a trooper today...getting poked, examined, bugged, catheterized...he was such a champ. Mommy was pretty teary at times, but managed to hold it together...just!

Please keep up your prayers for our little miracle!