Medical week updates:
Anna and I both finished our antibiotics for strep throat two Saturdays ago. She was feeling back to normal after 48 hours on medication so there was no doubt in my mind that her repeat culture last week would come back negative. And it did. I, on the other hand, was not so convinced that the strep infection inside of me had been successfully killed off. When this happened back in April, I remember feeling remarkably better two days after I began taking antibiotics. This time, not so much. The lingering cold I had did clear up but that could have been a matter of the cold simply running its course. The weekend I finished up my prescription of amoxicillin, I was feeling like poop and then a few days later, my throat hurt. Here we go again, I thought.
I wanted to go back for my repeat culture the same day as Anna but after taking Anna to her appointment and then school stuff (I did manage to grab some yearbook photos before Allie's gym class), there wasn't time. So the next day I headed off to the health center, fearful that I would be labeled The Carrier. My lymph nodes were a bit swollen but the rapid strep test was negative. The doctor sent a throat culture off to the lab just to be safe and that was negative too. Relief.
All of this was very timely because Anna had her appointment with an ENT specialist at Mass Eye & Ear this week. We believe that Anna caught strep from me or I caught it from her and because mine wasn't treated, she kept catching it from me. Because Anna and I are both clear of strep right now, Rich and I didn't want to walk in and schedule surgery for a tonsillectomy. We really liked this doctor. She was very reasonable and didn't jump to the conclusion that immediate surgery is the answer. She explained the reasons why taking Anna's tonsils out would be beneficial and we agree, if it reaches that point. Her having spina bifida and hydrocephalus does add another layer onto all of this but for now, we are in a holding pattern. If she is diagnosed with strep throat next week, it's not going to go how we planned. If she gets it in a few months and it doesn't repeat immediately after she comes off of the antibiotics, that won't be reason enough to jump to surgery. Fingers crossed.
The last medical appointment, hopefully until April, was repeat testing to see if the second deflux injection (surgery in October) corrected the reflux to Anna's right kidney. The technicians ran through the testing, which consists of slowly filling the bladder while imaging where the fluid goes, twice, just to be sure. One of the reasons why we like Anna's urologist is because he explains how he reads scans and ultrasounds. So as this testing was going on, I'm checking the screen, pretending to be a medical professional. I told Rich that based on my expert reading I thought the reflux was gone. Granted I had a 50% chance of being correct. We had an appointment with her urologist later that afternoon and he gave us fantastic news. The reflux is gone! The second deflux injection was successful. This is a huge relief and now I can put aside the thought of Anna having to undergo major surgery.
Of course Anna didn't want to go to any appointments but she was very cooperative. She also had to deal with commuting into and out of Boston two days in a row. Unfortunately, last night we left the hospital right before 5:00 so it took us much longer to drive home. Anna kept saying, "I just want to be home." The south side commuter rail was an absolute disaster yesterday. It was another day with a 2+ hour commute just to get to work and the issues continued into the evening commute. The timing of that urology appointment couldn't have been better as I was able to avoid dealing with the trains.
So no exciting, glamorous trips this vacation week but I'll happily take the good news instead.
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