It's better to be on the worry list than the surgury schedule

Wynn had another check-up yesterday in Salt Lake City. He was so cute and smiley at the technicians who noted it made it even harder to cause him pain. He was such a champ. He had to undergo another ultrasound and renal scan.

The ultrasound was first and the only challenge for Wynn was trying not to grab the probe from the technician. My understanding it that they are looking at the size of the kidneys and consistency of the tissue.

Next was the renal scan that required an IV site insertion and a catheter. Radioactive tracers are dispensed through the IV site then measurements are taken on how quickly the kidneys clear the tracers from the blood and then how quickly the kidneys clear them into the bladder. So this would essentially be looking at both kidney function (cleaning the body) and drainage (how quickly Lake Powell in draining).

Even though I have a basic knowledge of medical terminology, it still amazes me how confusing the information we receive can be. I did not completely understand what they were looking for in the renal scan previously. It takes asking questions to understand what is going on.

SO...size of the kidneys are still quite large with the right side being the largest and because of it's size the kidney tissue is quite thin. The left side is large, but we could visually see the tissue apparently doing well. The good news came from the renal scan. The kidney function is good--meaning the kidneys are cleaning up the body nicely, which is why the whole ordeal has not impacted his growth. We learned it is when the kidney function is inhibited that growth is impacted. Just as important, the kidneys are sharing the load (about 49%/51%), which would be another reason to do something sooner. The drainage on the left side improved slightly from his last test, but the right side did not show improvement.

SO...we head back for another appointment in 6 months. The urologist said he is hoping that with time we can continue to hope for improvement so as to not need surgery, or at least only need it on the right side. The urologist told us Waylyn is still on his "worry list," but we are grateful it is not the surgery list, for now.