Imagine be forced to pin down your fully conscious, screaming and crying, 18 month old child motionless while a nurse shoves a long plastic tube up her urethra, fills her bladder with dyed liquid numerous times, and X-rays her for what seems like an eternity. Actually, don’t try to imagine this scenario. It is much to painful to even think about. Absolute heartbreaking torture for our little one as well as for us, the parents forced to contribute to the suffering. At one point, I couldn’t help but to yell at the radiologist “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HER?!?! SHE’S IN PAIN!!” and “CAN’T YOU JUST HURRY UP?!?!?” Probably not good Alexa heard me freak out on the Doctor, but the whole experience was extremely upsetting for all involved. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we’ve had to endure this pain and probably not the last. According to the radiologist, her VUR condition is still very severe on her left side and although less severe on the right, the condition still exists on that side as well. We will see her specialist next week to go over the results, but it’s not looking promising.
For the next few hours Alexa sporadically yelled out in pain, knees collapsing to the ground, every time she had to pee. Although the catheter was removed, she was obviously still in massive amounts of pain as she clingged to me, digging her fingernails into my shoulders, trying to bear the agony. It took everything for me to fight off tears and remain strong for her.
As the day went on, she began to feel better, thank God. Later in the afternoon she felt well enough to help me carve a pumpkin. Yes, I know we are a bit late for Halloween, but being in the yachting industry, Halloween time of the year is so hectic, we were lucky to even make it to one house trick-or-treating on the 31st. Being that it is 5 days after Halloween, I lucked out on a delicious deal on a fantastically plump pumpkin from the farmers market. The weather is amazing right now (high of 72 degrees and sunny), so we sat on the back terrace and carved a butterfly into the pumpkin. And we scooped out all the seeds to make a fresh, baked pumpkin seed snack.
It’s another gorgeous, crisp, clear autumn day today in South Florida and we plan to make the most of it outdoors. The goal is to live in the moment, show Alexa the time of her life, and not to think about the possibility of Alexa facing surgery in the near future to correct her VUR condition. We are praying the specialist will deliver a more promising diagnosis when we see him next week.
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