The Stone

Boy oh boy, the last week or so has been a lot of fun and excitement. The good times all started last week, Friday, when I was driving to pick up Kira at Grandma Rose's house. A sharp and sudden pain hit me, it hurt like crazy. Thinking it was just "girl pain" returning post-pregnancy, I took a tylenol at Rose's house and headed home. While driving the kids home I had to make a couple of emergency stops at the side of the road because my pain had now turned into food poisoning, or so I thought. Jon met us at home and my long night began.

After 18 hours of pain that could not be remedied with medications (not that I could keep them down anyhow!) and didn't disappear despite a change in position, I finally sucked up my pride and headed into the hospital. By this point I could barely even speak anymore, it was far worse than either of my labours! Within 10 minutes of arriving at the hospital I had already been admitted, was in a bed and they were administering morphine (aka sweet relief!). I guess things were going to be worse than I thought. Anyhow, a CT scan confirmed that I had a lovely little kidney stone that was causing all this pain and discomfort. They loaded me up with prescriptions for pain, anti-inflammatory, and to break up the stone and sent me home. (On a side note, if you ever need to go to the ER in Vancouver between 8am and 8pm, go to Mount St. Joseph at Kingsway/12th, they are AMAZING and since it's a small hospital, they are super fast too, no waiting around.)

After meeting with the specialist on Tuesday, he determined that a surgical intervention would likely be necessary to remove the stone and scheduled me for Friday afternoon. Yippee. So, yesterday we went back to the hospital to get the stone removed, but, of course, I have one of those extremely rare stones that don't move despite all the drugs that I've been taking, and the doctor couldn't remove it surgically for risk of collapsing my kidney. Sigh. So, today is Saturday and now I'm back home on more drugs and this time an antibiotic has been added to the cocktail. I have a lovely tube in me that is supposed to help with the flow and, fingers crossed, the stone will break down this week and pass down the tube and out of me forever!! Regardless of what happens I will be back again this Friday for another surgery as the tube needs to be removed.

Despite all this, life does go on. The kids are doing so well. Kai is growing like a weed and charmed all of the nurses at the hospital with his big, gummy grin. Kira has been my little mommy, she was so sweet and concerned when I was "ill" at home. She'd bring me my puke bucket and tell me that this was where I needed to throw up, and she'd come hug me, kiss my tummy, and ask me if I was feeling ok. She'd even share her ice with me for my owee tummy. She is such a loving little girl and so protective of her family. I hope that she stays like that as she grows up.

I'd like to send a big thank you to everyone that has helped us out this last week, Jon especially for doing night duty and being so helpful around the house. And big thanks to Robynn and Zaven, Corrina + Chris, my amazing in-laws, and of course, Mom and Charlie. I cannot express how grateful I am to you and truly blessed to have you all in my life.