Little Olivia

So in case you didn't know Olivia has not been doing too well as of late. Quickly I will rewind her medical history to bring you up to date. Olivia was a pretty normal sized (7.6lbs), healthy kid when she was born. During her 12 mo check up she had a sudden drop in her growth (usually you have a positive curvilinear growth pattern) and she suddenly took a negative linear pattern...not even a small curve. Her pediatrician thought it was so weird he had her have a bone x-ray to see if she would be able to grow normally. The tests came out fine but three months after that, she had her first urinary tract infection. This was routinely investigated by a VCUG which showed she had reflux in both of her urethra's (her urine goes back up to her kidneys instead of down to her bladder), but there was no scaring on her organs so the doctors wanted to wait to see if she could grow out of it. By the time she was three she was having lots of UTI's and her reflux grade had moved from moderate to severe; not to mention she was on the strongest and most expensive (I might add) preventative medicine available, which she was taking on a daily basis.

Olivia with a UTI on her three year old birthday. Day one (grumpy face) and day two doing her (an attempted smile) IV treatment.

When she was 4 we moved to England, they took one look at her and scheduled her for an operation. It was the best medical experience I have ever had. The hospital was absolutely beautiful, the doctors were great and they gave her something (for free) that our US insurance companies had been dodging for a while, hoping she would grow out of it! At the end of the operation she no longer needed the medicine and she had no more reflux. However, she did have scarring on her left kidney due to the multiple infections while in America and the first part of England. We were Ok with this because you really only need ONE kidney and the right one was still scar free!

Everyone told me scary stories about the British medical system...I would have to say I disagree!

Only a little scaring on the left side!Right after her sting operation (almost two years later from pictures up above)

Anyway, one year later we moved to Australia and Olivia started to get infections again. We had to wait a while to get an appointment, but we were able to get hooked up with the top pediatric urologist at a private hospital in Bondi to check out the problem post operation. He ran some tests and we did some scans and found out that her right kidney is now damaged as well. Today I went in and we decided that she needs to be back on preventative medicine so she doesn't further damage her kidneys AND he is suggesting we do a re-implantation operation (where you cut off the urethra's and re-attach them to the kidneys so they drain the urine instead of shoot it back up). We are going into the hospital in one week for another consultation/ evaluation and then should be doing the pre-operation tests in two-three weeks. For this, Olivia will be under anesthetics and they will be taking a camera up her bladder, through her urethra's and into her kidneys. They will also be doing a VCUG to see if her reflux has come back.

On a side note, since all this started to happen, Olivia has not been able to gain weight. Mary is two years younger and is the same height and weighs more that Olivia does. Olivia is well below the national growth charts (weighing in at 35 lbs at 6 years old) and the ice cream, hot dogs, and protein shakes "diet" just don't seem to work. We are also working with another pediatric gastroenterologist to see if she is not absorbing her food, but that is a side hypothesis. I talked to the Doctor about Olivia's growth and he told me after we correct the reflux she should start growing again! He said he has seen small child after small child time and time again and they always start growing once the problem is corrected--so here is hoping... we should have everything done before May-keep you posted!