What Next?????

I am not sure how much more my sweet girl can endure. We have a had a rough couple of weeks here at the Slimick household, 3 to be exact. June 15th Sophie started running a fever out of the blue, it started off pretty low and quickly rose to over 104, well three doctor's visit later (only one copay...gotta love our Pediatrician!!!) and a catheter, it was determined that she in fact had her very first urinary tract infection. Yahoo. With it being her first UTI and due to her age they had to send us to the hospital about a week later for an ultrasound of her kidneys and an x-ray while they inserted a catheter with dye to see how her kidneys were functioning to make sure she didn’t have Vesicoureteral Reflux (Kidney Reflux). As it turns out she does have reflux in both kidneys, which basically means that when her bladder gets full her ureters (the tubes that get the urine from the kidney to the bladder) do not clamp off like they should and they allow urine to flow BACK up into the kidneys....not good. They grade it on a scale of 1-5, grades 1-3 children typically outgrow, grades 4 & 5 are more severe and usually require surgical correction. Luckily, for us Sophie is a grade 2 on her right kidney and a 3 on her left. However, in her left kidney she has two ureters coming out of kidney leading to her bladder, when you are only supposed to have one. So we have been referred onto a pediatric urologist to determine if that complicates her treatment since the double ureter makes the reflux worse, we see him on July 22nd. Until then our Pediatrician has put Sophie on a low dose of antibiotics to keep any further infections at bay. The only real down side other than the possibility of a procedure is now ANY time she has a random fever she MUST be seen to rule out the re-occurrence of another UTI or kidney infection. So that is how the week of June 15th and June 22nd went.

The week of June 30th through July 4th was just trying to get back to a normal routine for us and get used to remembering our daily dose of antibiotics. Then today happened. A day that will be forever etched in my mind, the day my sweet Sophie broke her left leg. It started off just like any normal Wednesday, aside from Neal being home, due to him waking up not feeling so hot he decided to take some sick time. I was pushing Sophie on the swing and she asked to go "super high" as she calls it. I have been preaching to Neal about not pushing her so high, but she has been doing so well holding on and Neal does it all the time so I thought "why not". Of course, she lost grip of the swing and was holding on with one hand out of my reach and then I watched as the swing reached it's highest point and my baby lost her grip all together and did a full on back flip and tumbled to the ground like a little rag doll. My heart sank, I felt sick and I thought for sure she had broken her neck, she landed awkwardly on the ground and as I raced to her she hadn't yet moved. I bent down to check her out she lifted her head and began crying and immediately reached for her leg and began screaming and crying that her leg hurt. Neal went and got ice and by the time that he had come back out to us I had determined it was time to go to the urgent care right down the street. Within minutes we were in the car and pulling up to the urgent care, they brought us back immediately did a work up and took x-rays. After reading the x-rays and determining that she had broken her leg in two spots her tibia and fibula, with one being along the growth plate, we were sent over to the Orthopedic's office with Sophie in a temporary cast to be seen (where we waited 2 hours before we even got called back!). After about another 45 minutes or so we finally left the office with a bright pink cast and a very brave little girl. We go back next week to make sure the cast is doing it's job properly. The prognosis is that she will wear the cast for 4 weeks and bear NO WEIGHT what so ever on the broken left leg. The doc wrote out an order for us to get a child sized wheel chair, but for now we are going to put some pillows and blankets (since her leg needs to be propped up for support) in her wagon and see how that goes. I am not quite sure how I am going to manage all of this on my own as I am growing in size every week. Of course, I feel ABSOLUTELY AWFUL since I was the one pushing her and I am not sure how I will sleep these next few nights watching the scene play out over and over in my head (Neal did not see it all go down), I can't believe I broke my baby's leg :( Luckily, we have already had a tremendous outpouring from our church and of course we have both Neal and my parents who are willing to do what they can when they can. So we will just take it day by day and get used to our new situation for the time being. In the meantime please keep my sweet girl in your prayers as it is very hard for a two year old to understand that she can't get up and move around or take her cast off. Thank you to all of you who have already been praying for healing and relief for Sophie it really means a lot to us.

My almost 3 year old does not always have her paci it is reserved for bed times only, but I made an exception for today!