Playing Catch-Up

Where to even begin? Catching up on the blog has been on my list of things to do - while I thought I'd be able to get it done this past week, and also do some work...once again someone else had another plan for me. :) I'm thinking the easiest way to break this down is to do a Paul Update and a McKenzie Update...hopefully after this we'll actually be able to get back to some Kartzke Family Fun updates...that would be nice, wouldn't it?

PAUL UPDATE
Paul is doing better and feeling a little better each day. As I write this, we are three weeks post-surgery for him, minus one day. This past week he really seems to have turned a corner and is walking a little more easily and has also just seems to be getting back to his normal sarcastic self. However, I do have to say that he has been an incredible patient - I would not have guessed this - but he has been the rock thru his whole back/tumor adventure - maybe because I was not able to be. Anyway, he remained strong and confident when I was at my breaking point two weeks ago - and fortunately, things seem to be looking much better.

The briefest re-cap possible: He hurt his back moving a couch the Sunday of Labor Day weekend...two bulging discs, one worse than the other. On Wednesday, he had the audacity to sneeze, herniated the worse of the two discs and was in excrutiating pain...and our journey began. Our chiropractor sent him for an MRI on Friday, assuming, based on the pain Paul was in, that he had ruptured the disc, but wanted to see how badly. MRI shows that one of the discs is indeed extruded - meaning a piece of the disc actually broke off - it was lodged against his L4 nerve which was the reason he was so incredibly miserable. The MRI also showed a tumor on his spinal cord and off we went to the orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Dunlap.

The next two weeks included many doctor's appointements, two cycles of steroids to get the pain to a level he could tolerate temporarily, and ofcourse much fear for me b/c of the tumor - she had told us she was 90% sure it was benign, probably a schwannoma which needs no treatment unless it grows and begins to push on nerves. But that other 10% - she said a diagnosis would be "irrelevant" as it "would be too late." Now what in the hell is a girl supposed to do with that information, I ask you????

So, many MRIs and a back surgery under our belt, here we sit. Our current situation is that Paul's back surgery appears to be a success - he's feeling a little better each day and is slated to return to work on Wednesday...this Wednesday. I don't think he feels like he's ready, but also feels like he needs to get back, especially given this lousy economy. Job security is good. We have been told by a neurosurgeon that the lesion found in a subsequent MRI on his brain is a "normal abnormality" and not a primary source of cancer - but he did order another MRI with contrast to get a better look at the tumor on his spine - we are awaiting those results now - and we are slated to see a neurosurgeon on Oct. 27. I need to know that we have done the very best we can to make sure that he does not have cancer - he is tired of MRIs, tests, appointments, etc...and would like to go with the majority thought that everything is fine...which I understand, but with two littles (not to mention my own sanity), I will be pushing forward, and he's just going to have to humor me and go along with it.

Getting back to normal though, this feels pretty good.

McKENZIE UPDATE
Little Miss Super Girl had her surgery (bilateral reimplantation) on Friday, Oct. 2. To refresh your memory, she has vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) and has been treated for it for just over a year. Because we did not see any signs of it fixing itself, it was time to take care of the problem and put it behind us. Get rid of the daily antibiotics and the constant lookout for a UTI - not to mention the too numerous catheterizations and the horribly traumatic VCUG tests.
Q: What is VUR?
Answer: Urine is made in the kidneys. Normally it only flows one way: down the ureters and into the bladder. VUR occurs when urine flows back from the bladder through the ureters - she had this on both sides (thus the bilateral). VUR results when the connection between the bladder and ureters are not normal - so in the surgery they disconnected the ureters on both sides and reattached them to the bladder in the proper places.

Surgery went really well - no surprises - Dr. Holmes also confirmed that we made the right decision because he was able to tell when he got in there that it would not have corrected itself. Surgery itself was about 2.5 hours at Children's Hospital SD - the nurses were awesome and we love the doctors we have. We did have a few complications during recovery - they had to re-cath her Saturday night, which was extremely traumatic for her, especially since they had removed the cath and balloon from her bladder earlier that day - but she was not able to pee afterwards and her poor belly was rock hard...so they had to do it, but it took six nurses to hold her down and we all cried with her. Sunday's challenge was a very low red blood cell count - ditto on Monday - they finally let us go home Monday evening after she ate a few bites of her requested breakfast burrito - hoping "home" would help her get on the road to recovery. It was a long week, Friday and Saturday became especially miserable and although she hadn't really eaten more than six cheese its on any given day, she hadn't pooped in 10 days...we worked with the on call urologist at Children's over the weekend and 11 poops in 12 hours later - she was a different child. Still not feeling well, but absolutely and totally so much more herself! Yay!

We had our post-op appt. this afternoon - and although her recovery has been slow, she is doing well and on track. We will try going to school for a few hours tomorrow, in hopes that she can go back on Thursday so I can maybe not get fired from my job? :)

Since its taken me over two days to complete this entry, I will post it, and follow up hopefully with some pictures tomorrow...I am hopeful then that I can get back on track and start updating regularly. :) Thanks for your patience!