grant: health update

quick preface:

i hate being so "public" with grant's issues, but it is SO much easier to explain it once on here instead of having to explain it thousands of times in person.

where to begin?

grant was born with skin tags on his face and ears. he has five altogether: two in one ear, one on each cheek and one in his other ear. skin tags are not dangerous and are common in newborns. at this point, they are simply a vanity issue, but will removed sometime in the next several months. however, (because there is always a "however" with us) the skin tags seemed suspicious to the doctors because they are symmetrical on his face...they are in this perfect line from his ears down to his chin. now this is where i might lose some of you :)  during pregnancy, the ear/nose/throat anatomy is formed around the same week that the kidneys/renal system are being formed. sometimes with infants if there is something wrong with the kidney/urinary tract, it will "show" itself in form of skin tags. 

we had an ultrasound at the hospital when he was born and they initially told us that everything looked fine. however, at his newborn checkup we were told that there was some "stretching" in his kidneys and that there could be some problems...we went to the urologist this past week and they said he could (or could not) have an extra set of tubes in his urethra. we go next month for a test that will determine if when he urinates, if there is any backflow...regardless if there is a duplication of tubes, if there is no backflow, we are in the clear. if there is backflow of urine, then the tubes will have to be removed.

okay...and lastly...

there are very FEW people who know about this...mainly because we don't know what it is and cannot give it a name. when grant was born i noticed he had white "gunk" on the bottom of both eyes. i asked the nurse and she said it was just eye gunk/"sleep." i knew that wasn't what it was, but figured it would go away....it didn't. we asked his doc at his appointment the other day and he basically had no idea what it was either. i've googled everything under the sun and cannot find any information on it. we have an appointment with an opthamologist soon....

the "white spot" is on both of his eyes...on the bottom of each iris. you cannot see it when looking at him unless he looks up in the sky or if you actually pull his bottom eyelid down. i'm not going to post pics of it but i did my best to draw a picture of what i'm talking about just to give you an idea:

so thats what going on...

i'm not going to lie...i was completely taken off guard by all of this. i had an event-free pregnancy and his ultrasounds always looked good. 

after all of the appointments/trips to and from chapel hill/pre-ops/post-ops/surgeries with harper...my heart sank when i realized that this was all going on with grant. aside from the stress of it all, i dread having to watch grant get poked and prodded at like harp had to. but it is what it is and we'll have to deal with one step at a time. 

aside from all that, grant is doing great! he is SUCH a good, easy baby. he eats well, he sleeps great at night, and has such an easy-going personality. he is everyone's favorite person in the house right now! :)

we'll continue to keep everyone posted once we know more.