Nephrologist Visit

Little Judah started his morning with Micah so Mom could shower. Micah was the only one awake and was anxious to knock out his schoolwork so he could play video games, knowing we would be gone.  (Bryan worked nights all week so he was sleeping.)

Clearly a complicated problem. 

 For some reason, the kids all love when he has tummy time. Judah...maybe not as much,  certainly not for as long.

So this is Children's National. It's actually quite nice and updated inside. But the outside just leaves a lot to be desired to my more traditional taste buds! The positive is lots of windows and I do appreciate from the inside!

The nephrologist is the second specialist who was a bit surprised that Judah hadn't had a thorough exam with the cardiologist. While his blood pressure looked good here,  it took a lot of work to get that (he doesn't like staying still while it's squeezing his arm and I can't blame him!) She took it again a bit later manually and it was 60/40. She also noted that he has a spider web appearance when he was screaming. He had an echo in utero,  but I think we'll see if we can follow up on that just to be sure there aren't issues. 

Like I said,  lots of windows. I'll miss the views of DC!

Judah's first selfie with mama. He wasn't thrilled, but he also wasn't screaming!

Nothing to really report from the appt. They ordered a blood draw, and if we hear nothing, it was fine.  They did a urine sample and found leukocytes and some blood but ended up shrugging them off for now. 

She also recommended elevating him while he sleeps to help the urine drain.  He generally stays dry all night and it's believed the urine is just hanging out in the kidneys and ureters. As we've heard a hundred times already, our main goal is avoiding a kidney infection or other damage to the kidneys.  So we don't want the urine hanging out there. He's on amoxicillian every day to hopefully prevent infection but it's not 100 percent at preventing them.

I hate that I can't get in a picture what I see. He was so sweet hanging out on my shoulder as we waited for his blood draw. Poor kid was awaken by the rubber band being applied to his arm. He hates that thing. We got lucky with a fabulous tech who got the blood first try. He mentioned maybe trying a heel stick and I assured him that a vein draw would go better than the heel stick. He's an old Navy corpsman who has worked at Children's for 38 years! He said they call him the "vein whisperer" and man was he right! Quick and easy and I assure you I could see no vein! 

One of my favorite things about DC- row houses. I always wanted to live downtown in one of these. And get to have the cool DC "taxation without representation" plates on my car.

For the record, I still enjoy the view, but no thanks to living here. Too many cars, people, and homeless! Not to mention, I couldn't handle the mayor. Or the current state of political and social unrest in the area. Yep, visiting is perfect.