I defined something? Accurately? Guess I'm done with the book learning.

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We had a good 10 minutes of fun last night, in the form of a hailstorm:


I had my fingers, toes, legs and eyes crossed that the hail would not damage my skylight; thankfully I keep my van garaged, so it was safe as well. The skylight seems fine, and I haven't noticed any leaks, so I'm hoping the house came through unscathed.

I had a nice night without the girls last night, which means I'm actually well-rested today, or at least I was for the bulk of the day. Unfortunately, my sleep deficit wasn't really corrected by one night with a solid 9 hours, so now Im starting to drag again.

Thanks so much for the offers to watch Miss O during Bean's PT. Mom, I hate asking you guys to drive all the way over here for only an hour or two, but maybe sometimes I will.

Miss O just wants to wander everywhere now, so as soon as someone opens a door, especially the door that leads back to the PT gym, she makes a beeline for it. And then screams when she's thwarted. She's a much more self-contained person than Bean, but has the same opinionated streak her sister does. Added to her still non-verbal "communication" and she's one frustrated little kid sometimes. I keep trying to tell her that if she'd just talk she'd be less frustrated, but she merely smiles, babbles something, punctuates it with "mama" and gives me a hug. If I didn't know better, I'd think she was saying "But if I use words, how could I drive you batsh*t crazy, mama?"

We had Miss O's urology follow-up today. The doc was great, took plenty of time with us, explained everything, so if you need a pedi urologist in the area, let me know.

O has a very mild degree of reflux. He said it was a grade 1, but he'd call it a grade .5 if that were an option. With any degree of reflux, there's always a margin of error so it *could* be as high as a grade 2, but even that wouldn't be a huge deal. Assuming all goes well, and she has no further kidney infections, this is likely just going to be one of those things.

What she has is called Vesicoureteral Reflux: in the simplest terms, when the bladder fills, the valve between the ureter and the bladder isn't airtight, so some urine backflows up the ureter towards (or to) the kidney. In the lowest grade, the urine just goes part way back up, and in 90% of cases, it's a self-resolving thing. Meaning it corrects itself as she grows. She'll need frequent urinalyses, biannual ultrasounds and yearly VCUGs to monitor the situation. If she has one UTI/year or no UTIs, and the tests don't show any increase of grade or any damage to her kidneys, it will just be a matter of monitoring until it resolves.

If she has 2 or more UTIs in a year, or an ultrasound or VCUG shows something funny, that changes. Then it's likely surgery time.

And Bean will need an ultrasound, too, and will end up on O's same path if she has a UTI, as 35% of siblings have reflux as well. (I keep saying UTI, because that was O's e.r. diagnosis, but the urologist said UTI + fever = kidney infection. So O officially had a kidney infection, at least in the doc's book.)

Good times. At least taking Bean for an ultrasound won't be like taking Screamy Screamerson. Bean seems pretty excited about seeing her insides :)
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