OK, so for those of you following the saga of the boy and his kidney, some good news I thought I should share. We have finally finished having all the various tests he had to have, the latest being a DMSA, which is a nuclear scan (they inject him with something radioactive which moves to his kidneys, then take pictures to see how much function each has), which he had on Tuesday. Finally. Follow up on Wednesday with the consultant, and the verdict is that the dud kidney, although small and badly formed is, at present, contributing 25 per cent of overall kidney function (which is great; with 2 proper kidneys, each contributes 50 per cent, so 25 per cent is not at all bad - the paediatric surgeon we saw antenatally said they wouldn't even consider removing one (usually) unless there was less than 5 per cent function.) And as he does not have reflux, the infection risk is very low, which means that a)they see no need to do anything at present and b)he can stop taking the antibiotics he's been on since birth, which is nice.

The only concern is that the dud kidney may not grow, or not grow much, in which event, it would obviously, over time, contribute less and less to the overall kidney function. So they'll check on it periodically (an ultrasound in a year's time is the next step) and see what's happening, and go from there. So that's all sorted, and though I wasn't worried, per se, it's certainly nice to be able to shelve it all for a while. And to know that I don't even have to contemplate the idea of surgery on my baby :)