Sawyer: the reflux capacitor

We met with the doc, "the pediatric urologist" last Monday, who was not convinced that Sawyer has a blockage. He ordered two more tests, which Sawyer went through today. One was another abdominal ultrasound and the other a VCUG, which shows if he has reflux between his kidney and bladder.

Turns out Sawyer has some serious reflux going on. They rate reflux on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the worst. For Sawyer, one side is a 2-3, the other is a 4. Kids with a 1 pretty much always grow out of it. The urologist said he would guess Sawyer has about a 50/50 chance.

Sawyer's treatment plan is an oral antibiotic once a day for the next year, when they'll check his reflux again. If it hasn't improved at all, we'll discuss surgery. The doctor said it's a 2.5 hour procedure, with a day or two hospital stay. They do a ton of them and it almost sounds better than some of the other stuff he's been through. But we won't worry about that for another year...

As of now, Sawyer's kidneys look fine and haven't sustained any permanent damage. The doctor said if he grows out of it or has the surgery, that should still be the case. "Twenty years down the road, you can't pick out the kids who have had reflux." There's only damage when reflux goes undetected.

Overall, we're just glad to know for sure what is going on and how to treat it. He has no physical limitations and shouldn't be in any pain from the reflux. He shouldn't have to go through anything out of the ordinary for a long time, which is a huge relief. We're looking forward to Sawyer running on his full 1.21 jigawatts soon.