Renal Scan Results

So Owen had his renal scan on Monday afternoon. We arrived at the hospital (that was a trip in itself....but for another post!) and waited our turn. When the tech came to get us, she was worried that Owen was going to be too active to be able to complete the test. Apparently it is 2-20 minute tests that he has to lie fairly still for.....She went and checked and said that they only do it with "no meds" or under full anesthesia and if we had to do the "full" that we would have to reschedule. Needless to say, I wasn't very pleased with her because she got me all stressed out. Tony and I didn't really want to cancel the appointment, so we decided to go ahead and try the test. She first felt around for a good vein, then put some numbing cream on both of the insides of his elbows. We waited another 20-30 minutes for it to get numb. I was really worried about not being able to get the test done, so I sent Gramma to the gift shop for some suckers (thought that maybe they would distract him) and I called the Dr's office. They told us to go ahead and try it and even if he couldn't get it done, to go ahead and come in for our appointment later in the afternoon.

So we went back to the room and had two really nice "peds" nurses come in to start his IV. They wrapped up one arm and his legs like a burrito while Tony and I tried to keep him happy (didn't work very well!!) but they were able to get him on the first stick, so that was good. They reassured me that he wasn't crying because it hurt (she claimed he didn't even flinch when they stuck him, so the numbing cream worked) but because he was mad. We got him calm just long enough before the test started.....in which Tony and I wrapped him back up like a burrito, only this time his arms were out. He cried when they injected the die, but I was able to entertain him with the sucker....for about 5 minutes....then he was TICKED! He cried and screamed and cried and screamed for the next 25 minutes! No matter what we did, he was not a happy camper. He was really tired and we kept hoping that he would just fall asleep....he is a tummy sleeper, so being flat on his back was not helping! He finally gave it up with about 10 minutes left. It was probably the worst experience so far!

We could see the test as it was happening on the monitors in the room. The left kidney was definitely bigger than the right and it did not filter out the dye during the first portion of the test. During the 2nd portion, they gave him some lasix (sp?) and it did finally filter out most of it. We weren't sure what that meant.....so off to the Dr we went. She came in and said that the although the left kidney was slow, it responded to the challenge of the lasix test.....so that meant No Surgery.....for the meantime. We were happy with that. She said she would continue to monitor it by sono and if it came back looking the same as it has been, then we would just continue with the monitoring every few months. If at some point it would come back with any worse results, then they would just go ahead and do the surgery. So....we are in a holding pattern for now, which we are happy with at the moment. We go back in mid-April for a follow-up. Thanks to everyone for their prayers....they helped:)