Elie Bell Update

First off, I want to say thank you SO much to all of my friends and family who have had us in their thought and prayers this past week. It meant so much to me, and made something difficult so much more bearable to know that I have so much support and love. Not to mention....I think the prayers worked. On Thursday, Elie did phenomenal with both of her procedures. In typical Elie fashion, she chilled on her tummy looking around and smiling at the ultrasound tech as she was getting her kidneys looked at. THen we proceeded into the next room and the only time she really fussed is when the catheter actually went in....then she was fine. They injected the dye and we could immediately see that the dye was headed from her bladder back up the wrong way to her kidneys. Within 2 seconds, the radiologist confirmed that she did indeed have bladder reflux on both sides. Not at all what we wanted to hear. I was very sad and of course the thoughts of many more UTIs, probable surgery, and 6 months of daily antibiotics ran through my brain. I tried to put things in perspective, mainly because of the horrific things that I see children go through via my job, but it just does not help when its your own child. Tyee was strong as usual, and knew that we were going to deal with whatever hand we were dealt and stop at nothing to help Elie.
On top of everything we were dealing with, Elie woke up the next day covered head to toe in a horrible rash. Tyee and I thought she was maybe allergic to something from the procedures, but it was getting worse. So back to the pediatrician we went to learn that she had/has a virus on top of all this!! While I did not know if I could take one more minute of stress, Elie was kicking, smiling, and laughing at her brother. We were sent away with the knowledge that Elie's reflux was "Grade 2" on a scale of 5, with 5 being the worst. So the good news is, she probably will not have to have surgery! Hopefully she will "grow" out of it, and it wont be that much of an issue. We do have to go to a Urologist in about a week to decide if we need to start the preventative antibiotics to make sure bacteria does not reflux back up to her kidneys. Her kidneys looked good and they were not damaged. This was all very good news to Tyee and I, and we will now wait until we meet with the urologist in a week. Thank you again to everyone for your thoughts, we love you all!!!