A couple of months ago, as Mike and I were headed to the west side of Indy, we passed Riley Hospital for Children. I made a comment about how I never realized where exactly in Indy it was, and how lucky we were for not ever having to know its exact location.
I thought about this as I drove around the massive construction that surrounds Riley right now, searching for the Outpatient Center and its parking garage.
We are still lucky, as the reason for our visit wasn't a terribly serious one. We were there to see a pediatric urologist for Eli. As I wrote about earlier, he's been having some difficulty urinating, and at times he's been in a significant amount of pain. So while there were about a hundred things I would rather have been doing yesterday afternoon, I was still anxious to have him seen and to, hopefully, get some answers and a resolution to the problem.
It turns out my hunch was correct. Eli has what is known as meatal stenosis, or a narrowing of the opening of the urethra. Basically, the opening where his pee comes out is too small, which causes the painful urination. The doctor told us that it's quite common, but that he rarely sees an opening as small as Eli's. He concurred that Eli is probably in a great deal of pain when he really has to pee, and so we should have it surgically repaired soon. Unfortunately, he also has a mild case of eczema on top of that. In order to make sure the surgery is totally successful, we need to give the eczema a few weeks to clear up. His surgery is scheduled for April 13. It's outpatient surgery, but they'll still have to give him anesthesia. I hate that he has to go through another experience like this, but I'm ready for my boy to feel better.
We had an excellent experience at Riley yesterday, and I feel lucky to be under the care of Dr. Mark Cain. He was wonderful with Eli and very, very thorough. I hope that you'll never have a need for Riley or any of its specialists. If you do, however, you can rest assured that you're in good hands.
Glad you’ve got an answer for the pain & thankfully it’s fixable. Sorry you have to go through the anesthesia again, but hopefully it will be better this time around 1) because you’ll know even better what to expect and 2) because he’s older.
Yeah for a diagnosis! These days, that’s half the battle (not to belittle the challenge of seeing a little one go under anesthesia — we’ve done that too, and it makes a momma’s heart beat faster). So glad it was a good experience!
That is the same diagnosis that Zach ended up with- that’s the procedure they ended up doing when they went in to scope and thought they were going to find something else.
So glad you have answers- and Dr Cain is wonderful!!