Hello. I am writing this blog from the hospital. On Monday, March 7th, 2011, I brought Brianna to St. Lukes hospital for her routine MRI, CT scan and ultrasound to check for recurrence of cancer. After all testes were completed, we went home. Shortly after arriving home, I received an alarming phone call from her oncologist stating that Brianna needs to be rushed right back to the hospital because she is in renal failure! Not knowing what she is talking about, I quickly drove her back there and the whirlwind began. She immediately had an IV put into her arm. After blowing one vein, the nurse tried again and got it right. Her creatinine level is supposed to be at 0.5 for her age and size but it was 2.7.That is about 5 times higher than it should be which then told us that her kidneys are only functioning at about 25%. After testing her labs again, they decided she needed emergency dialysis which they didn’t have the facilities to treat her with there. It was crucial to remove the dye that was injected for her MRI from her body since her kidneys were not capable of filtering it out.
She was transported by ambulance to Children’s Hospital after that. She arrived in the ER and was admitted to the ICU, when I quickly got the explanation for the course of action they were going to take immediately. The doctor sedated her, then inserted a huge catheter into her leg. This procedure took longer than expected due to complications. After that was completed, they started the dialysis process. As soon as they tried that, there was resistance and the catheter that was just put in was clogged. It was now 1:30 a.m. The doctor administered a drug to remove the clot which took 1/2 hour to work. At 2 a.m., Tuesday morning, the dialysis was started and continued until 5 a.m. All of this happened so fast, yet seemed so slow, almost like time was standing still. My head was spinning and we were very scared. This all seemed unreal!
We spent the day in the ICU closely monitoring her blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen level and whatever else she was hooked up to! Brianna was in a lot of pain and requested pain medication many times. The pain medicine helped temporarily but also caused very shallow breathing, which then required oxygen. A few hours later we received a visit from her urologist. He spoke to us about how damaged her kidneys are and told us this is somewhat common in children who have a reconstructed bladder like Brianna has. The kidneys can’t always take the pressure this creates, especially when the kidneys are so scarred and have decreased in size. They are VERY swollen right now and have to be drained continuously, therefor she needs a foley catheter placed inside of her for a few weeks. The placement of that catheter caused Brianna quite a bit of pain. Gosh this is so difficult to watch! My poor baby has gone through enough in my opinion but I guess that’s up to God, not me. As we sit around waiting to hear what the next step is, I just sit quietly and pray.
We were told she would be moved to an inpatient room which took hours of waiting, but were finally moved Tuesday evening. We settled in and I felt like I was surely going to pass out. Geez, when was the last time I slept??? But, there were nurses to meet , procedures to learn, and Brianna to comfort. She is not happy to be back in the hospital, especially with a huge catheter in her leg for dialysis, and another catheter attached to her draining her urine into a bag. She can’t believe this is happening either!
10 p.m. – I had been up for 41 hours and had to go to sleep!
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