It all started on a rather mundane Tuesday morning. I was in the kitchen making french toast for breakfast and packing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch; the kids were getting dressed for school. Then, quite suddenly, I hear from our bedroom a rather odd moaning sound. Then I heard it again. At the risk of burning the only shot at breakfast my kids had, I tried valiantly to ignore the moans. Well, those moans progressed to the nasty sounds of retching. In between dry heaves I heard, "Kristi I need a bowl now." I quickly threw Logan a plastic bowl, and told him to run it in to dad. The retching continued for several minutes and finally Nathan said that he needed to go to the doctor right away.
Being the overly compassionate and truly sensitive person I am, I let out a sigh of exasperation and said "Ugh, fine, I guess I will hop in the shower." So I dropped him off at Urgent Care, and took the kids to school. When I returned to Urgent Care they had already called the hospital and told me that it was either a kidney stone or appendicitis. The doctor informed me of this in the hall as Nathan was throwing up in the exam room. The doctor's parting words for me were, "You need to take him to the hospital as soon as he is done with this." I knew that with my levels of compassion I would make the perfect doctor!
Once we arrived at the hospital, the ER nurse immediately took him back into a room as I waited in the lobby with Reagan. Thank goodness Aunt Joce came to the rescue and took Reagan! They were buddies most of the day. After getting Reagan off, I wandered over to Nathan's room. By now they had already given him some serious pain meds. He was "Intervention" high! Every nurse that came in the room was greeted with a "You're awesome." And every time he woke up just enough to notice I was in the room, I got a "You're so pretty." After about 3 hours, they determined it was a 4mm kidney stone and sent him home with some serious drugs and an appointment with a Urologist.
We could go home, as soon as we found the keys that is. Yes, in my infinite wisdom I gave Reagan the keys to play with so that she wouldn't cry. Dumb, dumb, dumb. About 20 minutes before we were discharged, I got a text from Joce in the lobby saying "please tell me you have your keys." After three trips around the courtyard, the hospital main lobby, the ER, the children's ER, lifting the grates in the water fountain, and talking with hospital security, I began to think that the boogieman found the keys, went to the car, got our address off of the registration, and was now on his way to rob us. The day was really shaping up to be fantastic!! Thankfully, the ER front desk person returned them to us after someone turned them in when they found them in the vending machine. That's right, a prayer was answered with the purchase of a Pepsi.
Well, after four days of misery, Nathan decided it was time for surgery. So the following Tuesday we went back to the hospital and left Aunt Joce to do "the hair," get breakfast, and take the kids to school. During pre-op Nathan had an EKG which read that he was having a heart attack right there on the table. Obviously he wasn't, but that didn't really calm any one's nerves. The Anaesthesiologist came in to read it, he called the Urologist, who called the Hospitalist, who then called the Cardiologist. Not a good thing to have 4 doctors outside your hospital room talking about you. Of course I remained sooo calm. Nope I didn't think "Oh my gosh, he is going to die and I am going to be left all alone with all of these kids, that's a lot of baggage." I certainly never thought, "How in the crap am I going to pay all of the bills? Do we have life insurance? I haven't worked in years, who would hire me?" Turns out, that it was a normal heartbeat, the machine had an "error," so it was a good thing there was no freaking out.
That actually turned out to be the best news of the day. After an hour and a half in the operating room (when the doctor said it would only be 35 minutes) the doctor came out and called me into the "special room." His first words were, "It did not go well, he was a tough, tough case." Not exactly what you want to hear. The surgery failed and we were informed that he would have to have a different surgery at another hospital two weeks later.
Those two weeks went by slower than paint dries in the tropics. But last Friday he went back in for surgery. Reagan made cookies for him the night before, and again, Aunt Joce took the kids, and even went to Caitlyn's class on Friday for Grandparents day. She was the youngest grandma there! The check in and pre-op were so uneventful - it was fantastic! Instead of having to go in with a scope and try to explode it, they put some sound wave machine against the kidney and explode it without invasive surgery. However, the surgery was extensive enough that he was still under general anaesthetic. The doctor was able to find the stone right away and dissolve it in 15 minutes. Halla-freaking-luah! The stone is gone.
Nathan felt great when he came out of surgery. He was only in post-op an hour before he was discharged. I tried to talk him into stopping at Costco on the way home. I even told him he could use one of the little electric carts, but he vetoed the plan, and I took him home. So, no more pain meds (thank goodness, I don't have to call A&E now), and he even felt good enough that he took Logan to the ASU vs Stanford game Saturday night.
A woman gives birth and goes home to feed the baby, change diapers, do laundry, and take care of the family. A man has the pain (they say) equivalent to giving birth, has it removed, and goes to the football game he really wanted to. Men really are from Mars.
