Norah's visit to Iowa City

We started our day by leaving home at 7. Allyssa came to Ames to take Wes to school as she was on vacation. We got to the hospital and parked in the ramp and made the trek to the Pediatric Specialty Clinic. Iowa City as something similar to Ames with Herky all over, and they had a clown Herky at the hospital. It was the things nightmares are made of. ;)

We checked in and answered their new patient questions on a tablet- fancy stuff. A nurse called us back to take her vitals and put numbing cream on for the IV she would need for the Mag3 test, and she was freaked out already. The VCUG definitely made her fear medical appointments.  The nurse asked if we wanted her to ask the doctor if she could have some anti-anxiety medicine that would also help her to forget the IV insertion and testing. Yes, please! We went to the waiting room while she talked to Norah's urologist, Dr. Storm. A few minutes later, we went back so she could have some. Then, we waited for the IV. The IV insertion was still no fun. I had to hold her while two nurses did it and a Child Life Specialist came armed with bubbles, and iPad, and toys to distract her. Then, we headed upstairs to do the Mag3 test, which took just under an hour by the time we got her situated. She still managed to hold her pee with a diuretic, but they managed to get what they needed anyway. When they originally called to make the appointment for the test, they said we would have time to eat lunch in between the test and the appointment- we did not. Shortly after getting back to the pediatric specialty clinic, we were called back. A med student came to examine Norah and ask us a few questions before we saw Dr. Storm. He talked us through a few things while they got her tests from Ames loaded onto the computers. It turns out it is good we did the MRI as it allowed him to see more of what we needed even though it was primarily for her spinal cord.

We will be going back in a few weeks to do an exploratory surgery- Cystoscopy with retrograde ureteropylogram. In basic English, he wants to look to see if there is a blockage in her right ureter. He is not really concerned about the left. There is so dilation, but the right is worse. At the end of that, he will put a catheter in for another test, so that can be done while she is out.

The catheter will stay in overnight and used for urodynamic testing the next day. This is used to check bladder function. They will do another ultrasound test after this as well. He thinks the dilation is being caused either by an obstruction or by her bladder not working correctly, so we will try to determine what we need to do and proceed. I honestly mostly expected to hear that we would monitor the reflux and stay on preventative meds as in many reflux cases, that is what happens. I should have known that things aren't easy with Norah. The test we did Friday showed that her kidneys are working equally, which is what we wanted to see.

We did Norah's pre-op stuff with the nurse after Dr. Storm left. Then, we headed to the nuerosurgery clinic area.

We had to wait quite a while in the waiting room but Norah was starving and cranky, so that's okay. It was well over an hour before we saw the doctor, and it was brief. He showed us a few images from both the spinal cord and brain MRI. In short, Dr. Wilson is not concerned at all. We only need to go back if we see any warning signals, so I guess we still do not have a why for Norah's gross motor issues. Norah actually slept through this entire appointment as the only thing they did was measure her head circumference. When I talked to her pediatrician the second and third time, he was pretty unsure as far as whether or not the neurosurgeon would be concerned, but he wanted an expert to look into it. Better safe than sorry, but I wish U of I would have just looked at her images and called me as they truly did not do anything extra besides measure her head circumference. I am really glad we did not make the trip just for that! Plus, I stressed pretty hard about that appointment for nothing.

Afterwards, we headed just outside that clinic to the playground we had walked by several times. I was tempted to just leave, but decided we had better ask Norah if she wanted to play as I promised we could at the end of the day. She had a blast. It was probably the best running I have ever seen from her and she had so much fun! We ended up staying a bit to wait for my aunt MJ to get off work so we could have dinner with her as she lives in Cedar Rapids. It was good to catch up as I hadn't seen her for a few months.