The Chadwick Chronicles

We came home from the hospital on Saturday afternoon. We will meet with the pediatric urologist when he gets back in the country. He will probably administer a test to look at her kidney functions and then determine the next step. Meanwhile, we are continuing antibiotic treatment at home.

Sunday morning, I (Elise) woke up Jon and told him that I thought we had another rat in our house. He told me to go back to bed and then 20 minutes later I told him to get up and check. Sure enough, we had a little critter. This time it was a mouse and not a rat. If I am honest with myself, I will admit he was a pretty cute little booger.

We then began devising a plan to catch him that involved the swing box from the previous day’s purchase. Jon wanted to somehow catch him in the box and then assure that he couldn’t get back in our house. Jon told me I would be safe in our tiny little bathroom since it is a level up from the bedroom, so I retreated in there for safety. Sure enough, the thing ran into the bathroom and I jumped up on the toilet. I must admit….I was pretty nimble! Jon ended up catching the mouse within 10 minutes and…ahem…made sure it wouldn’t come back. Never a dull moment here in Peru.

Our doctor came into the room around 4:00pm this afternoon and told us that Lilia has an issue with her left kidney. The ultrasound showed that the part of her kidney that leads to the ureter which leads to the bladder is engorged. This either means that the ureter is too narrow and is restricting passage of urine or that she has reflux and when the bladder squeezes, urine is going back up into the ureter. Hopefully it is just reflux, which tends to correct itself by the time babies turn two years old. If it is a constricted ureter, our doctor needs to consult a pediatric urologist who will be out of the country until the end of the month. Either way, we are going to be in the hospital another day to ensure that the antibiotics take care of the immediate issues.

Please pray that the doctors can prevent future urinary tract infections due to this issue and that it doesn’t result in any permanent kidney damage. Please also pray for the two of us; that we turn this feeling of helplessness to make Lilia feel better into a deeper trust in our almighty God.

On a lighter note, praise the Lord with us that Lilia had a new cousin born today. We’re so excited that Sophia Grace Nash is so close in age to Lilia (two months exactly) and look forward to seeing the two of them develop a friendship.

What do mommies and daddies do when they have a sick child? They spoil them of course. We went out and bought this swing for her today. It has done wonders so far for her fussiness…..hmm, who are we really spoiling?

Lilia is such a little trooper. We have had some rough moments with changing IVs and some continued fussiness. But, overall, she continues to enchant all the staff and doctors. Last night Jon had some work to do and left us alone for several hours. Lilia ended up needing her IV changed and it was quite the ordeal. After the way she screamed her head off, I expected her to not have a voice today, but she does. Jon came back with a package and several letters. I am sure the people who sent them had no idea they would reach us in such a time of need. God’s timing is truly amazing.

One of the things Jon brought back from home was Lilia’s mobile. From the day we put it up in her nursery, it has been her favorite thing. She loves the sound and the colorful, little fishies. We put it up in her room last night and she woke up this morning thrilled to see it above her head.

All morning she has been trying to suck her thumb with the IV. She doesn’t try the other hand. We think she likes the challenge.

We had an ultrasound this morning to check out her kidneys, but we are still awaiting the results. The doctor said we might be able to go home today depending on the results. It seemed like overkill to have me in the wheelchair holding her while we went for the ultrasound, but we played along.