The addition of Riley in our lives has been such a blessing. We love her to death.Steph is now back at work. We've lucked out to an extent where she and I are each able to work from home 2 and 1 days a week, leaving Riley with a good friend of ours the other 2 days.
As many of you know, Riley was born with a spare part in her body - a third ureter (second off of her right kidney) - a duplicated collecting system - and unfortunately it has not developed in a way that has been good for her. About two months ago she went in to have a Renal scan. The results showed that her right kidney was not fully functional and that her healthy ureter off of the same kidney was experiencing reflux . . . essentially that one-way valve connection on the bladder is allowing the urine to move back up into the kidney, which is bad.
After much prayer and consultation, we've elected to move forward with a surgery where her urologist will remove the non-functioning portion of her right kidney, and a significant portion of the non-functioning third ureter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ureterocele. This procedure is one that is not that uncommon, and has shown to have a fairly good success rate.
Over time, the hope is that the area of the bladder that is under stress from the ballooning ureteracele will get relief once the fluid subsides, and at that time the affected muscles will be able to start working the way they are intended to.
With Labor Day upon us, we are now looking at approximately 3 weeks to her surgery. We ask that you keep her and the surgical team in your prayers. She will be in surgery Tuesday morning, September 16th at 9:00 a.m.
Have a great Labor Day Weekend!
