Parent's Name: Claire Klim
Child's Name: Evan Owen
Child's Date of Birth: 08/05/2006
E-mail address: cl.klim@virgin.net
Location: North Wales, UK

Diagnosis: Posterior Urethral Valves causing moderate kidney impairment and high blood pressure

Story:

Evan was born a big boy at 4.85kilos (a healthy bonnie boy or so I thought). At 4 weeks old he started to become sickly and was diagnosed with various viruses. At 7 weeks old he developed sepsis caused by a major UTI. After a scan they found his bladder and kidneys looked very poorly so we were rushed off to Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool, UK. A day after we arrived at Alder Hey, Evan went into kidney failure as his bladder muscle blocked his ureters (a response to the cathetar). He had nephrostomies into both kidneys until his bladder recovered. He had the valves ablated at 10 weeks old. Once they got on top of the sepsis and after the valves were ablated he improved loads. In hospital he had very high blood pressure which is still too high.

We spent 3 weeks in Alder Hey with him. As a baby he had issues with reflux and getting him to have his bottle was difficult. He's had so many viruses and infections and has had three febrile convulsions. At time of writing (February 2010) he's 3.5 years old and doing ok(ish). His creatinine is usually stable and within the normal range which is great. We're struggling with toilet training as he doesn't seem to be able to feel the urge to urinate and often has damp pants. Watch this space. Main difficulties are toilet training, dehydration causing headaches and vomiting, lots of viruses, high BP, goes through phases of leaking out of his nappy at night and is lways pale and sickly looking and doesn't have much energy. However, PUVs aside he's gorgeous, clever little thing, strong willed but caring and he loves his baby sister Martha.