It’s always been our dream to start a family. In august of 2021 our dream came true, our perfect baby girl was born. Unfortunately sometimes things in life aren’t always as perfect as you envision them and very early into our parenting journey we were hit with a bombshell and quickly realized it was just the beginning of a long, worrisome, and expensive process.

At the young age of 2 months, our daughter Indy spiked a fever of 104, we immediately took her to the ER where we were told there was bacteria in her urine and that she had a uti. the doctors attributed it to bad luck, prescribed oral antibiotics 4x a day for 10 days and sent us on our way.

A few days after the 10 day round of antibiotics was finished, Indy spiked an other super high fever of 104. It's very rare that babies this young spike fevers that high, so straight to the ER we went again. After three days in the hospital, many tests and imaging later, it was discovered that bacteria had spread from her urine to her kidneys and blood. The doctors told us Indy needed to get a study called a vcug done so they can see what’s causing these repeat infections. For the time being they prescribed more daily antibiotics to keep the kidney infection away and these crazy high fevers from returning, just a temporary fix until we could get this study done to figure out what’s going on and come up with a more permanent solution.

Months went by waiting to hear back from our health insurance provider if they would cover this vcug study that the doctors recommended. When we finally heard back from them it was only to find out they would not cover it. There was no question in our minds on whether we would get the vcug done or not. This our our baby girl, we needed answers and solutions.

We scheduled the vcug and payed out of pocket. The results came back stating she has “Vesicoureteral Reflux” or “VUR” grade 5, which means the ureters that connect her bladder to her kidneys are all knotted and scrunched up instead of straight. This is causing urine to constantly back flow up into her kidneys instead of leaving her body. This explains what’s been causing these repeat kidney infections, high fevers, and uti's. Grade 5 is the highest on the scale, meaning unfortunately it doesn't repair itself with time. Daily antibiotics won’t cut it at this point, surgery is the only way to protect her kidneys from damage and scarring, and ultimately protect her life.

For this procedure, open surgery is done through a lower abdominal incision, the bladder is opened and the ureters are repaired to prevent reflux. The good thing is this procedure has a 95-97% success rate, the bad news is that our insurance company and the healthcare system have let us down consistently through this process and we've had to pay for almost everything out of pocket. We are currently drowning in medical bills from the multiple ER visits, lab tests, specialist visits, daily antibiotics, and now surgery.

Indy’s surgery has been scheduled for April and is going to be completely out of pocket for us. If anyone can help contribute even the smallest amount we would be so grateful. Like any parent, we just want our baby girl grow up healthy and happy.