The Ordeal

Well, as many of you know I was in the hospital last weekend. It started last Tuesday. I had crazy back pain around my kidney all day. Finally, that night I couldn't take it anymore so I went into the emergency room around 1:00 am. They tested my urine and sent me home with a perscription for an antibioatic. Wednesday I started feeling better. Then Thursday after running errands all morning I came home put the kids to bed for a nap and the pain started up again. Even worse then two nights before. So Thursday I wrestled with the pain from 3:30 until Matt got home. Then it got really bad... I really don't like even thinking about it cause the pain was really awful! I started throwing up and was crying and groaning and couldn't really even see straight. Matt called a friend of ours at about 7:30 to come and stay with the kids. He took me to the emergency room again. While we were waiting to be seen I was in the bathroom crying cause it hurt so badly. They got me in pretty quickly and I went through triage to get a room. The doctor finally came in to see me and lectured me about waiting so long and now I had a super infection and was in serious jeapordy of losing my kidney. I started to panic and freak out. The kicker to all of this, I didn't and don't have insurance and all I could think about was how this was going to set our family back. The doctor could tell that I was starting to panic and so he looked at me and said, "listen you are a grown woman you can check yourself out of here if you want, but you are young, beautiful and you have young kids. If you leave here right now you could lose your kidneys, go on dialysis and have to have kidney transplant. It's up to you." I know I looked like a deer in the headlights. So of course I decided to stay.... They finally gave me some pain medicine after being there for a couple of hours, hooked me up to an IV and then after we had been there for 2 1/1 hours they sent me to get a CAT scan of my abdomen. The doctor came in an hour later and told us that I had a pretty big kidney stone, 5 mm and that I would have to be admitted. I got a room around 2:30 am and they sent Matt home at the same time. I will tell you what, I felt so alone laying in that hospital bed. Hospitals scare me so much and here I was not knowing what was going to happen.

The next day I was getting tons of fluid to try and flush it out. My very good friend April came to the hospital to see me. I cried. She listened and then we just had a really great talk. She helped me get someone to finally bring me a pump (as I was about to explode cause I hadn't nursed Beatrix since the night before at 7:00). Later that morning they took me to a x-ray (cha ching cha ching) and an ultra sound in the afternoon (cha ching cha ching). Matt finally got to get away in the afternoon to come and sit with me for a couple of hours. He was exhausted and very worried about me. When I told him how I was feeling about the tests he told me to just get over it and get better. When he left that night I was so ready for the day to be over. The night was long though. As all of us know, you really don't get much rest in a hospital.

Saturday morning I tried to wake up optomistic that I would pass the stone. I didn't and I didn't see a doctor either until 5:00. That meant a very long day sitting, laying, waiting for someone to come and tell me what was going on. I was starting to miss my family. When Matt came up to sit with me for another couple of hours he was floored though. He couldn't believe all of the help that he was getting and the calls from our friends and family telling us they were praying for my health. That night after I had watched all of the HGTV I could handle the nurse came into my dark little cave room. She changed my IV bag and asked me if I needed anything else. I asked her if she had a minute. She said yes. Then I started to cry. Really hard.... I told her how afraid I was. How much I hate hospitals. How I missed my family and how worried I was and how afraid I was that they were doing alright without me. After I was done, she said, "Oh honey, you just need to go home. You are just ready. You are going to be fine. It's just a little old kidney stone. If it was something serious you would have the doctors working on you. You just have to wait to pass it. Your family misses you its just that they have each other and you are all alone in here. It is going to be ok." As I was sniffing from crying I said thank you...I just needed to get that all out. I ended the night by reading Philipians 4:6-9 from the translation the Message...

"Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditiating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious - the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to prainse, not things to curese. Put into practive what you learned from me, what you headf and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies."

Sunday morning Matt called me at 7:00 am. He had been up since 5:30. He made coffee, set the kids clothes out for church and got himself dressed and showered so he was ready to go. It was good to hear his voice. I told him I had no idea when the doctor would be in to tell me what was going on but that I would call him once I heard something. The doctor came around 11:00 and said that I could go home. I was surprised. He told me that they were going to send me home with some FlowMax and pain pills. I called Matt and I was out of the hospital by 2:00.

Monday I was crazy nautious and threw up the whole day, until the pain medicine was out of my system. Don't think I have ever been that sick. Matt got me a new medicine and called a friend to stay with me that night cause he had to go in to work to get lesson plans ready for his sub. Tuesday was better, just shakey and the rest of the week passed much like that. By Thursday I was feeling much better just achey and then Friday morning....out it came. Just like that. The ordeal was over and we were saved from spending 6-12,000 dollars on a surgery. What a blessing and an answer to so many people's prayers. Thank you Thank you Thank you! For your support, your prayers, your gifts of food, time and money, for calling to check on me and Matt and for encouraging him while I was in the hospital. I am really amazed how well he did. Several people commented on how wonderful he is and that is true! I have to take the stone in for analysis to see if I need to change my diet. Other than that we are still praying that we will qualify for some kind of insurance through the hospital. Thank you again for everything and here are a couple of pictures of my nemisis. Gross as they are...this is what all of the fuss was about.