Saturday, May 16, 2009

Odd's and End's

Well not a lot exciting has happened this past week. We have been staying busy around the house though with Erin's crazy work schedule. He has been traveling a lot the past few weeks to do some training on new technology the stores are receiving. So it leaves Kale and home alone a few nights a week. Last week he was in Garden City for a few days. A few weeks ago he was in Omaha, NE then came back for a bit and had more work to do in Wichita.

Thursday was Erin's last day of work before his week of vacation. Although vacation isn't quite as fun when everyone doesn't get to take it! Erin is traveling to Superior, WI for a training seminar on his Amsoil business. Kale and I are staying behind for this one. Kale was sad when he saw that dad was going buh bye without him, and so was I to be honest! Erin is driving up to Topeka tonight to stay with my parents before going to KC in the morning for a 10 AM flight. He will be in Superior until Thursday.

Kale spent the day today with Grandma and Grandpa Dreiling while Erin went to a car show with his Amsoil set-up and I had to go to school all day. Kale seemed to have a great time. He got to see his cousin Marisa and play with Aunt Monica part of the day as well! I hear there were some cute pictures, but I haven't seen them yet! Once I get them I will hopefully get them uploaded!

School is going well for me. I got my last grade back and my perfect 4.0 GPA for all my Master's classes continues! I am proud of that! The class that we are currently in is Marketing Management. It is a difficult class but pretty interesting most of the time. I finish up this class on June 13th. Then on to Accounting! I am extremely nervous for Accounting though....and for two reasons. 1. I hate Accounting! It is something that has never come easy to me! 2. Because at some point during this class I will have the baby! That isn't going to help me out much if I happen to have the baby at a time that will make me miss a class! Yikes! Guess we will just do the best we can and see how it goes!

Kale has gone to bed for the night already so I am just up doing some quite things around the house right now. I am planning to head to bed early tonight also in hopes that I can get a good nights sleep since Erin wont' be here to wake up with Kale!

Friday, May 8, 2009

Dr. Appts in KC

This week we had appointments in Kansas City at Children's Mercy Hospital. Thursday we had lab work first, then a sonogram in Radiology, a VCUG, and lastly we met with the Nephrologist Dr. Vandevoorde (Kidney Dr.). Then on Friday we had a short day with only one appointment with the Urologist (Dr. Gatti).

Overall, we had a good few days of appointments. We got a lot of information. After getting the lab work back we found that Kale will need to be started on a renal vitamin and also an iron supplement. They are going to continue his prior meds to help him be able to get stronger before he hits his next growth spurt and to keep preventing the infections he would be prone to getting in his kidney's.

In the sonogram they found that Kale's left kidney (the non-functional one) has began to shrink slightly. Until this appointment the kidney has shown small signs of growth so it is a slit set back but we knew that if the kidney really was not alive it would begin to shirk until it eventually disolves into the body. They also saw that the uriters between the kidney and the bladder that are causing his reflux were still enlarged. This confirmed that his reflux was still rated about a Grade 5 (the worst it could be). This is why we had to go back this time and see the Urologist.

During our appointment with Dr. Vandevoorde he seemed to be quite pleased with Kale's weight and growth rates. He was satisfied with his breathing (last time we were there he was still on his breathing treatments). Also he was very happy to hear that he was off the bottle and pacificer completely (since 12 and 14 months) and that he is continuing to sleep through the night. Overall he didn't have any major concerns for us he is going to allow us to go a full year before rescheduling our next appointment with him!! This was exciting to us since it is the longest we have ever gotten to go without seeing him!

On Friday when we got to see Dr. Gatti (Urologist) we discussed the options we would have with Kale's reflux. When he was first born and diagnosed with the Grade 5 Reflux the Dr.'s had told us they would monitor him until he was 1 and they had hopes he would out grow the issue by that time. It is common that boys out grow the reflux as they start peeing at a lower pressure, however in Kale's case this did not happen. Erin and I didn't quite know what to expect but the Dr. explained to us although it is still bad, he was no quite ready to schedule Kale for surgery. So what he agreed to let us do was go for the next 1.5 years on the same pace with his meds and he would redo the scan at that time and see what the reflux had done. He wanted us to have him potty trained by that time so that he could see how the reflux does when Kale is holding in his urine. If he is still able to avoid infections at that time then we will attempt to take him of the meds and see if he can still avoid the kidney or UTI's. If so we may be able to avoid surgery all together. If he starts to get infections at anytime the Dr. said we would most likely jump to surgery quickly because Kale's kidneys can't afford to take any hits to them. His total functionality is approx 60% now which is good but that is all from one kidney. So to damage that kidney more would not be good.

All in all Erin and I were happy with our news. We hope to be able to avoid the infections and stay on the positive path that we are going down!

For anyone who has not been to Children's Mercy I will upload some pictures that I took during this visit. It is a wonderful place that saves lives everyday!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

First ''Trip'' Down the Stairs...

Today Kale had his first big fall down the stairs. Not only did he fall down the stairs he fell down the concrete ones off the front porch. Erin and I were both right there but after he decided he wanted to go down the stairs without sitting down he just went faster than we could stop him. He made the first step but fell down the last 3. He landed face first on the sidewalk at the bottom. He was pretty upset but dad grabbed him quickly and we went in to start cleaning up the scratches. He was bleeding pretty bad from his forehead and nose. He was very upset but once we got into the bathroom and he saw his toothbrush all the fuss was over! He is pretty tough, once distracted he completely forgot about the ouchie on his face!

Tanganika Wildlife Park

This past weekend we visited Tanganika Wildlife Park in Goddard. We had a great time there. The weather turned out to be great (although right as we were getting ready to leave the cold front moved in so we had to put on our jackets). Kale was very excited to be able to see his favorite animal, the giraffe's. During the visit to the park we got to feed the Lorikeets (very pretty birds), pet the Kangaroo's (Kale also had to make sure to show them his shoes), run with the bunnies, and turtles. He had a great time. The monkeys were very active and talking a lot to each other, it was very interesting to listen to!

Dreiling Family Slide Show! Compiled December 2010