Because I knew that everyone was anxiously awaiting the results of Brynlee's renal ultrasound, I thought I would throw a little post together (hopefully you all have learned that I tend to be sarcastic on occasion).
I was able to get ahold of Brynlee's rehab doctor's office to get the results of the renal ultrasound that she had the Friday before Christmas. They told me that the report showed "a little dilation on the left side of the pelvis." Okay, so what does that mean? I asked. Basically her bladder was a little bit fuller than it should have been, but they were not concerned, and her kidneys looked good. They are checking with urology to find out how often they want to repeat this test, most likely it will be yearly. So then I had to follow up with Brynlee's pediatrician who had prescribed the antibiotic that she has been on trying to prevent UTIs to see what they wanted me to do about the antibiotic. For now, we will leave her on the antibiotic; however, the medical assistant I spoke to didn't seem to have the story completely accurate, so I will talk to the pediatrician a little bit more in detail when we go in for Brynlee's 2-year well child visit in about a month. Whew! No catheters for now.
The day that we went in for the renal ultrasound we also went up to the Hem/Onc clinic to visit one of our neuroblastoma friends who was in having some chemo. We do go into clinic every three months when we have scans, but this was the first time that I had been back to the infusion area in almost a year. Well, that's not true, I guess we walked through it to get to the bell back in August. Anyway, it made me catch my breath to see it for some reason. I hate the infusion area! It is basically a wall of two sets of chairs in each pod and there are curtains that you can close in between each pod, but it is one of the least funnest areas to be in, especially when you have a baby that you are trying to take care of and you are there for hours upon hours doing chemo or blood transfusions and there is lots and lots of waiting. I haven't spent as many hours there as a lot of people have, but I have spent enough to know that it is not fun. Everytime I go into clinic I have lots of emotions. Most of my clinic and infusion area experiences have been less than positive; however, it was in that little infusion area where I really first saw that I was not alone in this cancer journey. Even though we had been inpatient in the cancer part of the hospital before this first visit, I had never met or even seen any of the other cancer families until this day. I hadn't ventured out of Brynlee's hospital room very often and anyone that knows me knows I am not the type to go and introduce myself to strangers, and so in my mind I was really the only one with a child, a baby even, fighting stage 4 cancer. It was that first day in the clinic, in the infusion area, as we waited for a blood transfusion that one of the other sweet cancer moms reached out to me and introduced me to the group of moms with kids fighting cancer at PCMC. When I was added to the group, I think there were about 140 of us. Now there are 199, and these are just the ones that we know of, some people for one reason or another we haven't been able to add to the group. And so it got me thinking that maybe that dreaded infusion area is a blessing in disguise in that it helps us know that we are not alone in our cancer journey and it allows us the opportunity to be among those who know and "get it."
Happy New Year and here's to hoping that our 2013 is infusion area free!
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