Back to the serenity of our room...

"Serenity" of course is subject to interpretation.

What was supposed to be started late morning/early afternoon was a done deal by the same time. They decided to bump Emmah up to the front of the line and I was "rudely" roused @ 6:30 after being up 'til 3am to (in essence) be reminded that Emmah was going to be having the procedure done today.

*blink* *blink*... uh... right... yeah, that's what I understand.

Then someone else came in about 1hr later telling me that they were talking about taking her earlier rather than later. Translation... now.

So long story short... they put in two ureteric stents... one for each kidney. No difficulty in getting them in place, everything went well and she's back in the friendly confines of her room. Initially I know I said that they were going to do the PN... that's what we thought, but they decided to go the stent route first and see if that clears things up. We can always go back and do the PN if needed.

Now we wait and see what comes of it. Ideally, it helps her kidneys drain, lowers her creatinine and relieves some of her pain.

This is where I get on my bitch box... again.

We chose U of C and Dr. Cohn for a reason. We have no doubt that Dr. Cohn is a great doctor... a great clinical doctor. I can honestly say that in the almost year that we've interacted with her, her people skills, showing of compassion, guidance and leading us are sorely lacking. She isn't what I would call (in a word) warm. We always felt that when ever we would meet to discuss things, or to ask questions about possible options we always felt (or at least I did) that she was always looking at her watch. I mean that figuratively... but it was almost like she was doing us this huge favor. Perhaps she did buy all but driving us away.

As concerned parents, we're always asking questions. We've asked questions since day one... and haven't stopped yet. We asked on more than one occasion if the hydronephrosis could be causing her back/side pain. We were told it's more likely the tumor(s) causing the pain and not the struggling kidney(s). I guess technically the tumors are the cause of a problem... the compromise of the kidney(s)... but THEY aren't causing the pain. If you have a growth under your skin, it won't cause you pain unless it's interfering with something or impinging on something. THAT is how a tumor can be cause of the pain... just not the tumor itself. Perhaps it could be a misinterpretation on our part, but never once did anyone say that hydronephrosis could be a strong candidate as to the cause of the pain. If it turns out that this is in fact the cause... and something as "simple" as a couple of stents could've rectified the back pain... that would be two strikes on U of C.

Okay, so here we are today and I asked the surgeon who did the procedure today if hydronephrosis can cause the pain that Emmah's been experiencing/complaining about. Her answer... in a word... absolutely!

In the immortal words of Charlie Brown... Good Grief!

KEIYTAP