REALLY bad couple of days...LONG post

Make sure you read to the bottom....it's good. The girls have experienced their first car accident...happy, happy, joy, joy!!

Let's start with Thursday, although it wasn't too bad. I took Alexa to the allergist to find out why she's had hives that come and go all day long for about a month now. The allergist would not test her to see what is causing the hives until we can get them under control. She said something about the test showing false negative to triggers that might actually be positive because her histamine level would be too low to show positive. I don't completely understand it, but the bottom line was that she put her on 4 different medications including an antibiotic for the next 3 weeks and then I am to come back and see her. She also worried that Alexa could have an infection somewhere that her body is trying to fight off and it could be causing the hives. Considering her kidney issues, she wanted to have her urine checked to be sure she doesn't have a UTI. Since Alexa will see her urologist tomorrow, she said to make sure the doctor sends her urine off for a culture to rule out the infection.

Okay, now on to Friday. We had to take the girls to see their urologist to follow up about their kidney reflux issues. Madison and Emily just had to have an ultrasound done and poor Alexa had to have an ultrasound and a VCUG. The ultrasounds went very smoothly thanks to the addition of a little television mounted in the room. The girls happily watched Dora while the technician did the ultrasounds. Then we had to take Alexa for her VCUG. I knew this wouldn't be pretty, it never is. She cried when they put the catheter in, and cried even harder when her bladder filled up and she realized she needed to urinate. They took the catheter out and then she really didn't want to go. She tried holding it, but they poured water over her until she finally went crying the whole time. This test gets harder and harder on the girls (and mommy) the older they get.

Then we walk down the hall for the appointment with the urologist. Emily and Madison had to give urine samples which was very easy for a change. In past visits the girls were not potty trained and the nurse would have to stick a bag to them to catch the urine and we would have to wait and wait and wait until they finally went potty. This time was a breeze though. Alexa didn't need to give a sample because they got hers when they put the catheter in. The doctor explains that everyone's urine tested fine and there is no indication of infection, but she would send Alexa's off just to be sure.

Madison's kidneys look great, and the doctor has released her. No more tests, no more follow up appointments, her surgery is a success and she is essentially cured. WOO HOO!!! Emily's right kidney appears to be a little smaller than her left and neither kidney showed great growth for this year, so she would like to continue to monitor Emily. It could be something as simple as a difference in the way the technicians measure from one year to the next. It could be nothing, but she will go back in 1 yr for another ultrasound just to keep an eye on things. Alexa still has reflux. No improvement from last year. We are supposed to start seriously considering reimplantation surgery or a deflux procedure to correct her kidney reflux. The deflux procedure is done outpatient and they inject the ureter with bulking agent (like collagen) to keep the urine from backing up into her kidneys. The reimplantation surgery requires 2 days in the hospital. They detach the ureters from the bladder and reimplant them to a different spot in the bladder where it will properly close off the ureter when the bladder contracts.

I don't know why, but I wasn't prepared for her to tell us it was time to consider intervention. She said we could wait another year and see if it resolves itself, but she didn't sound too hopeful that it would. If we decided to wait a year and it doesn't resolve then she would strongly suggest intervention at that time. I thought we had a few more years of observation before we would have to decide on surgery, but apparently the likelihood of this resolving on it's own after the age of 5 is pretty low. So this wasn't the greatest of news, but we kind of knew this day was coming. Now we have to decide when and what procedure we want to do.

For lunch we let Alexa decide where we ate. She wanted to go to Cracker Barrel so she could have "soup" (dumplings). We had a nice lunch and when Alexa asked if she could have chocolate cake and ice cream I couldn't tell her no. After putting her through that test, I couldn't deny her something as simple as cake and ice cream. She shared with her sisters and daddy and everyone enjoyed it. Friday evening the girls had a fall festival at school. They dressed up in their costumes, played games, ate food, decorated cookies and had a great time. They really enjoyed showing daddy and mamaw Kathy their classroom, their teachers, and their school. It was chaos with all those kids and parents and other family members running around. The girls enjoyed it though and after the day they had they needed somthing fun like that. Now let's move on to the bad part of the evening...

We got home from the festival and I realize that Alexa has not urinated since her test at around 10 am. She had tried to potty at the restaurant and at home, but never did because she said it hurt. I noticed that her belly looked really swollen and when I pressed on it she whimpered and it felt pretty firm. So I tried everything I could think of to get her to go. We sat her on the potty and turned on running water. I tried pouring water on her, tried bribing her with chocolate, tried sitting her in the bathtub, and even tried pushing on her belly to make it uncomfortable to hold in her urine. Nothing worked. We decided that she had been holding her urine for over 12 hours and that she shouldn't sleep all night long without using the potty. After a phone call to the urologist, we were told to take her to the local ER and have them put a catheter in and drain her bladder.

My instincts told me to take her back to the hospital where her urologist is, but the doctor assured me that the local ER should be able to take care of her easily so I took her to an ER closer to home. The local ER apparently only has one doctor on staff and he and all the nurses were busy working on a patient that was nearly bleeding to death so we played the waiting game. During our wait, Alexa starts coughing uncontrollably and vomits all over her clothing and the bed. We get her changed into a gown and get new bed sheets. The doctor finally comes and decides that she needs a catheter to drain her bladder - DUH!! So he says a nurse will be in soon to take care of that.

Two nurses eventually come in and start to put the catheter in. It takes about 4 attempts to finally get it in and they drain a small vial of urine and pull the catheter back out. I asked if that was all the urine she had and the nurse says that it was all that would fit in the vial. So I ask how that tiny vial was supposed to drain her bladder. She says that the order doesn't state that her bladder is supposed to be emptied, it only says to get a urine sample from her. I tell her the order is wrong so she sends the other nurse to check with the doctor. The other nurse comes back and says that the order is incorrect and they should have drained her bladder. At this point, I've just gotten Alexa to stop crying and calm down and now they want to put another catheter in. Needless to say she was screaming bloody murder when they did it again and by the time they were finished she was having a complete meltdown.

I scooped her up and rocked her and she almost instantly passed out in my arms. She was so tired and immediately went to sleep. Keep in mind it's probably around 1 am at this point. They tell me we need to stay until they test the urine. The doctor finally comes in and says that her urine tested fine and that we would be discharged soon. If we had problems with her urinating the following day we should take her back to the hospital where her urologist is because the local hospital won't admit pediatric patients. (That's nice. Why did I bring her there?) I waited... and waited... and waited for them to come discharge her. I stood in the hallway with her in my arms and watched as the doctor and nurses laughed and chatted and completely ignored me. Finally around 3 am I gathered all our stuff and walked up to the nurses station. I told the gal at the counter that I was walking out with her and if she needed me to sign something she better get it now. The discharge papers were sitting there waiting for a nurse to bring to me so she had me sign it, and I walked out of there with Alexa still in the hospital gown and a hospital blanket over her. I was so furious, and I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Saturday... daddy let me sleep in since I was at the ER so late. When I get up, Alexa still refuses to pee in the potty, in a pull up, in the bath...she refuses to go at all. I'm thinking that it looks like we will be making another trip to the ER today. So, I call mamaw Kathy to fill her in on our trip to the ER last night and she tells Alexa that if she goes potty then mamaw will buy her a present. Anything she wants. This excites Alexa and she immediately tries to go potty, but she cries and says it hurts. We wait a while longer, have some lunch and then try again. No luck. So I decide that she's got to be tired after our ordeal last night and I get ready to put the girls down for a nap. They always go potty before going to bed and when it was Alexa's turn she actually went a tiny little bit. Woo hoo, it's progress.

After nap she gets up and says she's ready to go potty. AND SHE DID!!! I clapped and cheered and told her what a great job she did. She smiled and the first thing she said was: "I want to call mamaw, I want my present now." I had to laugh. So I dialed the phone and Alexa told mamaw that she peed in the potty and it doesn't hurt anymore and now she wants a present. We got ready, loaded the kids up and off we went to mamaw's and papaw's house. We decided that we should have dinner first so we pick up mamaw and papaw and head over to a local pizza place.

On the way to the restaurant we get into a car accident!! Not a little fender bender either. It was a full blown - air bags deployed - totaled the van - we T-boned another vehicle type accident. The girl driving the other car was probably 16 or 17, she had just gotten her license and was driving her first car. It was completely her fault. I had the right away, she was coming from my left crossing the street and she failed to stop at the stop sign. I didn't see her until a split second before we hit the passenger side of her car. The air bags deployed, there was smoke everywhere, and Emily was screaming like she was badly injured. I was afraid the van was on fire so I screamed that everyone had to get out and get the kids out. (I think it might have been mostly the powder from the air bags because after we opened the doors and got out, it cleared pretty quickly.)

I step out of the van and this young girl just stares at me (like it's my fault). I yell at her with my hands up in the air and ask her "What the HELL?!?!?" At this point mom can't get Emily out of the car seat and she is screaming like crazy, so I go around to help get Emily and the young girl asks me if we are okay. I scream at her that I don't know because I have 3 babies in the car that are crying and I don't know what's wrong with them yet. We get the girls out of the van and calm them down. Neighbors have been standing around at this point and have called the police. The young girl then has the nerve to ask me to borrow my cell phone because she can't find hers now and she needs to call her mom. I tell her I don't have any idea where my phone is and I'm not going to look for it while I'm trying to keep my kids calm and see if they are hurt. So one of the neighbors loans her his phone.

At this point daddy is on the side of the road sitting down holding his ankle. He can't walk on it. Mamaw, Papaw and I have the girls trying to look them over and make sure they aren't injured. The cops show up and start asking questions and medics start checking us all out. Mamaw and papaw are taking care of the girls because I was the driver and the cops need me to fill out papers and answer questions. Daddy is still across the street and is unable to walk. He tells the medics that he doesn't need to go to the hospital, but I convince him to at least go get checked out because if he can't walk on it then I want to make sure it isn't broken.

While they were prepping daddy to go to the hospital, Emily wanted to go see daddy and give him a hug. Alexa and Madison clung to mamaw like glue. Papaw and I were taking the car seats and everything else out of the van since the tow truck was coming to haul off the van. We no sooner got everything out and the van was hooked up and loaded onto the truck. We were only a few streets away from mamaw and papaw's house so one of the cops took papaw back to the house to get their car. We loaded all the car seats and all the stuff from our van into the car and took the girls to get pizza. I felt bad for leaving daddy at the hospital alone, but the girls were still shook up from everything and needed a distraction. I figure it was better than taking the girls to the hopital and trying to keep them occupied while daddy got x-rays and played the waiting game. They ate pretty well and then Alexa remembered she still hadn't got her present so we took them to the store to get presents. Each girl picked out a new toy and a piece of candy and we took them back to mamaw and papaw's house. I no sooner got the girls in the house and daddy called to say they finally discharged him, so I left the girls there and went to get him.

The girls are bruised up in a few places, mostly from the car seat straps and are a little traumatized, but are otherwise fine. Mommy is bruised from the seat belt and steering wheel, but nothing serious. Mamaw is bruised from the seat belt, but otherwise seemed fine. Papaw said he wasn't hurt at all. (Oddly enough this was papaw's first accident too.) After daddy's trip to the ER, it's determined that his ankle isn't broken so it's probably a sprain. If it isn't feeling better in a couple days he needs to talk to his doctor about further testing. He's got a brace and is walking on crutches at the moment.

We borrowed mamaw and papaw's car to get us home, but I will have to call insurance tomorrow and see if I can get a rental van until we get a settlement. I will also have to go buy new car seats tomorrow since these have been in an accident now and are no longer useable. (I used them to get the kids home because I didn't know what else to do). I hope that this is the end of the drama and bad surprises for a while because I don't know how much more I can handle!!!