Last week we had a nice long day at UCLA medical center. Harper had two appointments and we were also there because Tom's mother had several appointments because she is having a pituitary tumor removed on Friday.
About 6 months ago Harper was diagnosed with kidney reflux. This problem was causing her to have frequent urinary tract infections and requires her to take a low dose of antibiotics every day. We found out from her tests last week that the reflux is resolving itself! We are so excited. She is still on the low dose of antibiotics since she has had a recent infection (though the urologist said that it is very possible that the sample was just contaminated), but we are going back in 6 more months to find out if we can take her off the antibiotics completely. The urologist said that it is very unlikely that the reflux gets better this fast when the patient has a duplicated system (that is where you have two
ureters on one side instead of just one), so we are feeling very lucky. Hopefully the tests in a few months will show that she is all better. Now we are just waiting to hear back about a kidney ultrasound that will tell us if Harper has any scarring around her kidneys caused by the infections that she has had.
A few months ago Tom's Mom went in for an MRI to see if they could find out anything new about her epilepsy. Instead they found a large, benign tumor in her brain that was not causing her seizures, but that would potentially cause her to lose her vision. Luckily she only lives about 90 minutes away from UCLA where there is a team of three doctors who works together to remove these tumors and on Friday she is going to have it removed. We are just hoping that everything goes well and are glad that we live close enough to be able there for the surgery and attend her appointments with her.
On a brighter note, Harper has been fantastic lately. She is finally gaining some mobility and is rolling and scooting all over the place. She can crawl to the side and go backwards, but she hasn't quite figured out how to go forward yet. Any day now . . . I guess I better baby proof the apartment.
Harper sticks her tongue out like this when she's concentrating. So funny.
Here's Harper in her dress before church this morning. Apparently I'm not as interesting as her fingers because she didn't want to look at me, but she looked so cute in her little dress :)
About 6 months ago Harper was diagnosed with kidney reflux. This problem was causing her to have frequent urinary tract infections and requires her to take a low dose of antibiotics every day. We found out from her tests last week that the reflux is resolving itself! We are so excited. She is still on the low dose of antibiotics since she has had a recent infection (though the urologist said that it is very possible that the sample was just contaminated), but we are going back in 6 more months to find out if we can take her off the antibiotics completely. The urologist said that it is very unlikely that the reflux gets better this fast when the patient has a duplicated system (that is where you have two ureters on one side instead of just one), so we are feeling very lucky. Hopefully the tests in a few months will show that she is all better. Now we are just waiting to hear back about a kidney ultrasound that will tell us if Harper has any scarring around her kidneys caused by the infections that she has had.
On a brighter note, Harper has been fantastic lately. She is finally gaining some mobility and is rolling and scooting all over the place. She can crawl to the side and go backwards, but she hasn't quite figured out how to go forward yet. Any day now . . . I guess I better baby proof the apartment.
Harper sticks her tongue out like this when she's concentrating. So funny.
Here's Harper in her dress before church this morning. Apparently I'm not as interesting as her fingers because she didn't want to look at me, but she looked so cute in her little dress :)
And here is a panoramic photo that Tom took from the Getty with a few landmarks labeled.
On Saturday (my actual birthday) Tom surprised me with hot chocolate and a chocolate cake donut (two of my favorite things) for breakfast. Then we went to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch. Here is Harper looking over the menu:
And after that we all shared some Pinkberry. Harper was a big fan.
I loved spending my birthday with my two favorite people! Here is another photo of Harper from this past week:
When we took Harper to the doctor for her 9 month appointment we had a urine test done because we are visiting the urologist later this week and she wanted to make sure that Harper didn't have an infection first. Well, it turns out that she does have another UTI. I feel so sad for her. She has to take these terrible antibiotics that makes her sick and we hate making her take it . And we have to go back to the doctor tomorrow to make sure her urine is clear of bacteria before the urologist visit on Thursday. This is all very frustrating. I hate seeing my little girl feel bad and hate having to take her to the doctor all of the time. I also hate that all of this costs so much money and that I have to even worry about how much it costs when all I want is for Harper to be healthy. We'll update when we find out more from the urologist. We were hoping for good news, but considering that Harper has another infection it is doubtful that her condition has improved. Please keep her in your prayers!
