Dear Diary,

Today was Gage’s three month biopsy – what a special day! It was nothing I imagined it would be! I would have been scared, but I’ve learned you can’t get scared about every little thing. I mean, that would just be stupid, because with chronically sick kids you’d just go through every day scared. Or ascared as we like to say in the South.

He was less than thrilled to learn they would stick a needle inside his body, where a perfectly functioning (so far) transplanted kidney was but hey! It’s protocol. The pros say there are reports that if you can find rejection in the very early stages, where it is very treatable, the long term prognosis is better. So we readily agreed! They know more about this kind of thing!

No food in the morning for Gage for an arrival time of 11:00am and a biopsy scheduled at 1:00om. A lovely gift was everything was on time. But Gage sure was hungry and thirsty. The best thing of the day was his Child Life Specialist knew he was coming and helped him prepare for the IV. Because even though you’d think Gage would be used to IVs being placed in his arm…he’s not! It’s always fun to stand outside and listen to him protest it. But this time the preparation helped him only have a small yelp through the procedure room door. It was great! Just a small yelp!

The IV meds to calm him down for the ultrasound in which they use to mark the body so they know where to put the needle to get the kidney tissue worked! He was just jello! How excited I was to leave for 30 minutes to grab a quick bite to eat. In a new cafeteria no less! And it was clean! What a bonus for me!

When I returned Gage was sleeping peacefully. As peaceful as I have ever seen him coming off of IV drugs! And lucky me, it’s been many times, so I’m used to it! It was short-lived because he cried for an hour after he was alert enough to know I was in the room.

And Diary…today my being calm and emotionally in check was extremely helpful! Because the doctor explains that when they did the ultrasound and marked where to insert the needle he turned to scrub in and they adjusted Gage’s bed by lowering it and the new kidney moved inside his body! Just moved! Making those ultrasound marks for the doctor irrelevant! Because when he inserted the needle he probably just tore through some muscle, making Gage’s recovery more painful. But then they did the ultrasound again and inserted the needle again and walla! A successful retrieval of kidney tissue! Test results tomorrow!

But wait, that’s not all, by now you can guess our stay was extended to make sure that the doctor didn’t put that needle in the bladder…because that would be dangerous of course. So, some additional meds to calm Gage down for another ultrasound and an extra blood draw – but don’t worry, Gage only woke a little bit when they stuck him in the other hand! No using the IV for the blood draw because of the special test they needed to do to make sure there was no internal bleeding from that little extra (free I hope) needle stick! Because that would have meant we would have been admitted!

At 5:00 Gage got the clean bill of internal health! And I got to put my hospital gown clad kid in the car with a sheet wrapped around him and away we went to the drug store for a strong pain killer to help with that pesky little extra needle stick!

And what a perfect way to end the day — with Gage sleeping on the floor right next to me because it hurts for him to walk up his loft bed stairs.

XXOO,

Julia