Reflux 3.0

Ugh. It's not what it sounds like. The title, I mean. It is, but it's different this time. Let's back up. Once upon a time, Ellie got potty trained. If I had written a post about it last year instead of this year, I might have titled it something like, "Riding the Potty Train," (which she asked to do several times) or "Every Party Needs a Pooper," or even a simple, "Potty Party!" (Man, just totally stole my thunder for if I ever write a post about Charlie potty training.) Because with Ellie, everything kind of has to be a party to really get her motivated.

We had to turn potty training into a party because my first attempt to even get her started turned out like this: 

I thought I had gotten her all psyched up to start potty training, but I guess the whole idea of underpants after the security of diapers was a little overwhelming. So our compromise was that she could have a pair on the top if she would also wear a pair on the bottom.

It seemed to take, for a while. If she had an accident and needed a clean pair, she would usually get a pair on her head too, explaining to me, "I'm just being a pirate, Mommy." But she had a pretty rough time of it. In retrospect, starting potty training so soon after our move away from Grandma and Grandpa's house probably didn't help matters. She was losing sleep over it, getting bags under her eyes, anxious beyond what I'd seen her. So I went against the expert advice and decided we'd take a break.

We hit it again a few months later with everything we had. I mean a real potty party, with real party hats to wear. This was an EVENT.

 If there is one thing Ellie will respond to, it's a party.

Balloon party in her tent bed at the time. I think Charlie is in there somewhere.

 Big celebrations all the time.

 All kinds of drinks gatorade and other drinks, which she insisted on having a little bit of all of all the time.

 And of course we had to have a sticker chart. Ellie didn't really get into the whole fill up a grid with stickers and get a prize (totally responds to that now). For her, the sticker chart WAS the prize. She was really into surfing at the time (don't ask me where that came from), so I made this poster and we printed and cut out these surf boards that she got to put up every time she was successful. And lo and behold, she hung in there, and we hung in there, and (eventually) she got it. Huge sigh of relief!

So hooray! It's over! Except it wasn't. Isn't. Still potty trained. But then about the time she really had it nailed, she started complaining about it hurting when she went to the bathroom and she had more accidents. Doctor confirmed a urinary track infection, gave some antibiotics, and we were set. Accidents cleared up, and so did the pain. But she kept getting them. I honestly don't know how many she's had at this point. Right now we're treating the third one since Christmas. We tried to do everything we could to prevent them. Making sure everything was really clean, no bubble baths, drinking extra water, no more pull-ups at night, cranberry juice, etc. Nothing was helping. 

Finally her pediatrician ordered some tests that we had done a couple days ago. Ultrasound of her kidneys and x-ray with contrast (that was a really rough, painful one, Ellie was so tough!). It turns out that when her bladder empties, a little bit flows back up toward the kidney. To put it another way, she has reflux. Again! I'm really starting to hate that word. We'll meet with a urologist next week to see what treatment this will entail, and whether it's something that will need correction or she's likely to outgrown.

So this, and not any extrinsic factors, is what's causing all the infections. Also probably made it pretty hard to get the hang of potty training. Sheesh! Way to hang in there kiddo! Sometimes she would really get sad about having an accident or setback, but she really learned to stay calm and keep trying. Pretty big lessons for such a little kid.

This is a picture of her about that same time. Mindy came to visit and caught the tail end of potty party. Ellie liked wearing her boots. I seem to remember her calling them "happy boots."