Good Things Come: Reunion

I'm a little late with this post because the day got away from me and I completely forgot to post. We had a busy weekend and a full Monday! On Friday, Drake and Kennedy had their 15 month appointment with their pediatrician. This meant 4 shots for each of them. Poor little babies. This was also a big day for me because it was our 1st doctor appointment for me to take them solo. It wasn't easy, but we made it! Their doctor was really impressed with their progress! Although, she wanted us to go ahead and have the VCUG (urinary) testing at Children's in Dallas. I was trying to avoid this testing all together because to me it seemed cruel and unnecessary.

The Good: Saturday morning we headed to Dallas for our 1st NICU reunion. We were able to see so many of the medical professionals who were a vital part of our life last year. One of the doctors, who wasn't even one of our main doctors, remembered us and was still talking about Drake's miraculous recovery!

The Bad: In the early hours of Monday morning, I packed the car and loaded the babies for Dallas. We arrived at Gran & Poppy's by 7am to drop off Kennedy and pick up nurse Lisa, and we were off to Children's Hospital. 1st test was Drake's ultrasound, which was not bad at all and he tolerated it like a champ. Next up was the dreaded VCUG (Voiding Cystro-Urethrogram). This test checks for bladder size and to make sure there is not any urinary reflux back into the kidneys. I was already educated about this procedure because he had this testing in the hospital last year at Presby. Last year the results were normal and I had no doubt in my mind that the results would be normal this year, too. For this testing, poor little Drake was strapped to a board with his hands above his head and a catheter was placed. Then a dye is injected through the catheter into the bladder, and the radiologist watches on a screen to see where the dye goes. Needless to say Drake was not happy and he was screaming the entire time. The next step was to make sure he could void all of the dye that was just injected into his bladder, which he did. The testing took about 20-30minutes and soon as I was able to pick him up, he immediately calmed down.

At the NICU reunion with cousin Jacob