UTI summary

I'm writing this mostly for myself, so I can keep up with Lilly's stuff..but of course you can read it too since you're here :)

UTI #1 Lilly was so pitiful with a fever of 103!

UTI #1 was in the beginning of July. We went to the doctor with a very high fever and they did a full blood work up and urine culture. We went to the hospital to get her blood drawn, but she did not urinate so we went back to the doctors office to get a shot of antibiotic. The urine analysis came back with white blood cells the urine dip showed a UTI but the urine culture did not "grow" anything because she had the antibiotic in her system already. We were on Suprax for 10 days. We were told that we would have to see a pediatric urologist if she had another UTI..because it is uncommon for little ones to have more than one UTI at such a young age without an underlying problem.

UTI #2 she was in only a diaper at this point because her fever was so high

UTI #2 was in the beginning of September. We had another high fever and Lilly started grunting. I thought she was grunting because we started rice cereal earlier in the week and she was constipated. We went to the doctor and they did a urine dip which came back positive for a UTI. They decided to do a catheter to get a "clean" sample, we were put on amoxicillin, which made Lilly very sick to her tummy so we were switched to Suprax again. We got a call from her doctor saying that the lab did not do the urine culture so we had to do another catheter for them to run the appropriate tests. The urine culture came back negative, we thought that the Suprax cleared up the UTI by the time she had the second catheter. We decided not to see the urologist at this point because we thought the UTI cleared so quickly we thought it was because of a monster dirty diaper. Now looking back, this was not the case. A catheter is inserted directly into the bladder and in Lilly that only collects urine from her left "good" kidney, since her right ureter bypasses the bladder the urine from that side was not tested.

UTI #3 As you can tell she didn't feel that terrible for this one :)

UTI #3 (or continuation of #2 we are not sure) was in the middle of September. I noticed that Lilly's urine was very stinky and she was grunting again. So we went immediately to the doctors office to have her urine checked, they got another positive from a urine dip and did a bag to collect her urine instead of a catheter. We started Suprax again, and then two days later we got a call from the pediatrician that Lilly for sure had a UTI and this time the culture grew lots of bacteria and it was a resistant one. So we switched her over to Bactrim for 10 days and made our appointment with the urologist.

UTI #4 She isn't phased at all

UTI #4 (or continuation of #2 or #3 depending on how you look at it) in the end of September. The urologist ordered a urine culture after we finished Lilly's antibiotics from UTI #3 to make sure that it cleared. I went to the pediatricians office to pick up the supplies to do a bag urine sample, as I did not want to subject Lilly to more germs at the doctors office with the flu and whatnot going around. So this time I got the sample (without any fight from Lilly) and brought it to the lab. I got a call today from her pediatrician saying that the culture grew out more bacteria. I had a feeling that would happen because she was grunting again. She said is was not a lot but because of her previous UTI's she and the Urologist want to put her on a different antibiotic because it is another resistant bacteria. (Lilly is on prophylactic antibiotics until the surgery and for a while after to keep a handle on the germs.) They switched her to Macrodantin, which I have to mix into her cereal twice a day. Thank goodness it has no taste! So right now she is off her prophylactic Bactrim and on the Macrodantin for 10 days..then we will do another urine culture to see if it is cleared up this time. We have also started her on yogurt once a day (for the probiotics) to try to keep the tummy issues associated with antibiotics at bay.

And another one

We got a call from Lilly's pediatrician today, we did a urine culture on Tuesday to see if her last UTI cleared up. Well it either didn't clear up or we have another one and of course its another resistant bacteria. So we are off of the prophylactic antibiotics and on a different higher dose antibiotic for another 10 days.

I have also tried to schedule Lilly's surgery like the urologist told us to and the urology staff is not very helpful. They keep telling me that they are unable to schedule it because they do not have her chart yet, which is totally understandable, but they will not connect me with the person that I was told to speak to. I am very frustrated with this now that Lilly has another infection. I really just want to get this over with as soon as possible to avoid any more infection and possible kidney damage.

Now with all of that being said, Lilly is doing fantastic! She has been a super happy baby. She has started to sit up unassisted for a couple of minutes. We have also started her on yogurt as a way to combat any potential tummy issues that is associated with long term use of antibiotics, we think she'll be on them for at least 3 more months.

I promise I will update more when I get my new new laptop. I got mine about 2 weeks ago and it has some major issues, I contacted dell to let them know and they are sending me another new one. I hope to have it some time next week.

Oops...its been a while

Where do I start? Since the last time I posted everything has been crazy! Lilly had another UTI a mere 2 weeks after the last one..so we were sent to see a Urologist at Children's hospital in New Orleans. They ran two test, a renal ultrasound, which Lilly did amazing for they let her lay on her tummy on my tummy (does that make sense?) and they did the majority of it through her back so she was able to "talk" to mommy and play with my face the whole time. Then we did a VCUG, they injected a contrast dye into her bladder and took x-rays to check for Kidney Reflux (it has a fancy name but I can't spell it). She hated the VCUG, she had strangers pinning her down to the cold hard table while a big scary machine buzzed over her head. But as soon as it was done Daddy went in to save her.

The next day, Friday Sept. 18th we went back to meet her urologist and he had some news for us. Lilly was diagnosed with a Duplicate Collecting System on the right side of her body and kidney reflux which is caused by the duplication. This will require surgery to fix, but the surgery has a high success rate and we are hopeful that she will be "all done" (in sign language) after this one surgery.

Explanation: Normally you have 2 kidneys that have a tube (ureter) that drains into the bladder and that drains into the urethra which exits the body. We don't know for sure but the doctors suspect that Lilly has, on her right side, one kidney with some duplication in it and two ureters that exit it. The ureters meet and form into one that totally skips the bladder and enters the urethra instead. Her upper and lower poles of her kidney are swollen as well as the ureter. Normally when the bladder is full the pressure will close off the ureters so that urine does not back up into the kidneys but because Lilly's ureter doesn't go into the bladder she urine is constantly backing up into her kidney (reflux), thus causing all of the infections. The plan is for the doctor to take the ureter and "taper" it to make it smaller and then re-insert it into the bladder. We plan on scheduling the surgery sometime within the next two months. We don't want to risk kidney damage that may be associated with more infections and we also don't want her to remember it.

4 Month Stats..a little late

Sorry it has taken me so long to post Lilly's 4 month stats and achievements..it has been a crazy weird month here. Our laptop has gone kaput, and that is where I kept all of my pictures and videos. Mike and I had to do CPR on the computer and it worked just long enough to get all of my goodies off, I have learned my lesson, keep all important stuff on the external hard drive :)

At her 4 month appointment Lilly weighed 15.3 lbs and was 24.5 inches long. She is in the 80%tile in weight and 50%tile in length. Of course we knew all along we would have a short child..look at Mike and I, we aren't the tallest people on the planet. She also started rolling over on her tummy to sleep and she scared the poop out of me a couple of times when I saw her sleeping face down! I guess she just likes the way her sheets smell :) She is also starting to sit up more, she can sit for a couple of seconds unassisted and then the topples over to the side or forwards and eats her feet, quite literally.

I can't believe she didn't wake up when I took this picture :) This is the very first time she slept on her tummy!

"Pooh Bear, Winney the Pooh Bear"

We also had another UTI..my poor baby started running a fever with no other symptoms and I knew almost instantly that meant it was another UTI. So we went to the doctor and the did a catheter to get a "clean" urine sample and they ran some tests and yup it was another UTI. Then she had an adverse reaction to the amoxicilin, poor thing puked like 5 times in two days, so we went back to the doctor to get a shot of antibiotics and a new prescription. We got a call later that day saying the lab left out a test, so we had to go back to the doctor (third time in one week) to get another catheter urine sample. That was the hardest thing in the world, I know it must have been painful for her, she screamed her little head off..but daddy was there to pick her up as soon as they were done. We finally got the last results back and the UTI had cleared! We thought we were going to have to go to the urologist to get an renal ultrasound and have dye injected in her kidneys to check for any anatomical problems, but the doctors said to wait, that this UTI just may have been because of the monster dirty diaper (I suspected this all along).

This is almost an obligatory sick picture in our house. Poor baby was so hot I only had her in a diaper!

Napping in her swing..sick as a puppy dog!

Now on the monster dirty diaper :) We started Lilly on rice cereal every other day to get her accustomed to eating solids and sitting in her high chair. She loves love loves the rice cereal, I think it is mainly because it is mixed with her favorite thing in the world breast milk! Well she went about 5 days without pooping, then all of a sudden one day her body caught up with her. I'll leave out the details here as to not embarrass Lilly :) But yeah, I think that is why she got another UTI.

First Cereal Picture! It was more like soup but Lilly loved it!

Belly Laughs

I know it's been a while...but I've got to make this quick. Lilly is sitting in her jumperoo and wants out. :) She was sick again, last week...picture and details to come later. She is much much much better now. We took this video last night Aug. 31, 2009...this is how much better she feels

She has been a barrel full of laughs ever since :)