Maunfacturing My Own Stones or It Can Always Be Worse

On Wednesday, February 23, I finished breakfast and made a few phone calls.  Then I sat down to get some work done on the computer.    Suddenly I got this stabbing pain in the lower right of my abdomen.    Hokey smokes!   I thought it must be my appendix.    It didn't go away.

I called our family doctor and they sent me directly to the ER.    Nelson came home from work and took me to the hospital.   It wasn't getting any better.   They ordered a CAT scan.  Oh how I love CAT scans - not really.

I was so glad that Nels was there.   I was so consumed with the pain that I didn't even think about the nurse putting the BP cuff on my right arm.   Nels caught that right away and they situated it on my left arm.  They started an IV and put in the contrast dye.  

For whatever reason, it is my natural tendency to ponder the worst case scenario.   I really didn't want to have surgery, but it hurt so bad that at some point surgery didn't seem so bad.

Well the nurse came back to the room and told me the problem is not my appendix, but rather, kidney stones.  Whew!   She must have wondered about me when I told her I was glad that was the problem.   My dad had problems with them, and I guess there is a genetic predisposition for them.   As painful as they are, they aren't deadly - in my world.  CAT scans can show some really bad things...

The pain medication was helping.   They told me it generally takes 7 to 10 days to pass a kidney stone.    That is a long time!  I was released from the hospital to go home.  If I am going to be miserable, I'd rather be miserable at home.   I called our pastor and left a message.   I started drinking all the water I could.  


Pastor Henderson called and prayed for me.   In a few hours it began to hurt a lot.   I remembered him telling me that hurting is a sign it's on the move.   To me, that was a good thing.   Later that night it made its exit.  

That was an experience I hope I don't have again.   I am working on drinking lots of water every day.  :-)

Laura Ingals Wilder always said, "There is no great loss without some small gain."   The gain in this case was Mom deciding she will get a new set of hearing aids.    Even though I called before the "stone" hit, she didn't hear the phone ring.    After we got back from the ER, I called her and she admitted that she was missing lots of things because she couldn't hear them and she thought it was definitely time to get new hearing aids.  Our whole family is happy about that.  I just wish God had used a "less painful" way to influence her decision. :-)