As mentioned, I was flying home on Saturday evening. Friday night I had gotten my stuff organized and packed so that we could fit in all of the fun possible before heading to the airport....breakfast, maybe a quick stop at a local park on the Puget Sound and then on to the airport. More of those little grandmother moments to pack in..........
I have said this before and probably will say it again many more times in my life--I had a plan (see above), it was a good plan, it met the criteria of getting me home for Sunday in Syracuse, but then life stepped in and happened outside the plan.
It went like this:
About 3:00 am, I woke up with stabbing pains in my right lower back. I had felt this before and recognized that it was the kidney stone---you know the one sitting calmly in my kidney which was picked up in the CT scan in March. My family practice doctor had suggested that I let my urologist know (who even wants to have their "own" urologist) and see what he would want to do to monitor the situation. However, by the time he (Carl-my family practice doc) and I had this conversation, I was pretty tired of checking on "stuff" and decided that since my kidney was functioning well and the kidney stone was not blocking anything--why bother? We already had a follow-up scheduled for the thyroid ultrasound (which by the way came back fine. I have two small benign nodes which require no further monitoring.) So, at 3:00 am, the answer to the "Why bother?" became a bit more relevant. The kidney stone had definitely begun moving down the ureter.
At first, I assumed that it would pass. Over 10 years ago when my other kidney stones happened, I had brief episodes of pain and/or vomiting over a 2 week period before things went terrible. So I expected the same thing would happen here. It would go away and I would for sure go see my urologist when I got back to Utah.
Except it didn't go away and around 4:00 am I started throwing up and feeling very sick as well as the burning stabbing pain of the stone. By 10:30 am, Tosha drove me to the ER in Tacoma, about 25 minutes away. This was the same hospital that Ava was at just 2 weeks ago--a weird coincidence which gave Tosha knowledge of where to park, etc. It was a miserable ride for me, but I think it was harder for Tosha to have to drive and also watch me be so sick.
Let me say that the people we met and who worked with us at the Tacoma Hospital were all great and super friendly and kind---but their ER is a very "interesting" confusing place, especially if you are sick and out of it like I was.
I wish we had pictures to help explain the layout but words will have to do. I had grabbed my wallet but brought nothing else as I expected medications and to be sent home. Tosha wheeled me to registration, they took my ID and insurance card and then we were sent to Room D to see a provider (they don't call anyone doctors anymore it seems, because there are so many different types of medical personnel) for triage. The ER had two separate waiting areas joined in the middle by the registration desks. The triage area was behind a door on the side of one of the waiting areas. As you entered, there were five curtained areas--A-E and then one single room F where you sat to wait. Within a few minutes, the nurse had taken a bit of a history and they had placed an IV for medication and gave me something for pain and for nausea. Since I have neither an appendix or ovaries, she said it is highly likely that it was a kidney stone, but sent me off to get a CT scan literally within 3 minutes of entering the triage area. That was amazing.
We then came back to the triage area where you could see and hear everyone coming and going. After a short period of time, they took us back to the waiting area--in fact to the far side waiting area which was much quieter and said to wait and someone would call us to come and speak to a provider. After another not too long wait, they called my name and directed us to some glassed in "rooms/niches" at the end of the other waiting room. Literally the rooms were totally glass so you could see everyone in the waiting room and they could see you as we sat waiting for a provider to come and discuss next steps. It was an odd feeling. At this point, I am still in the clothes I came in and Tosha is wheeling me around in a wheelchair. A new provider came in and told me that yes, I did have a kidney stone, and they were going to keep me for awhile to stabilize my pain and nausea, but I needed to wait a bit for a bed. And after another short wait, I was finally moved into an actual ER bed in a room with actual walls and a glass door.
I am not sure how long that all took. Tosha might know. It seemed like we were moving around doing stuff pretty quickly but it was just an odd cycle in and out of rooms. And the glassed consulting niche in the ER will always be memorable.
Later that evening, they decided they were going to do surgery the next day and hopefully laser the kidney stone. They gave me the option to go back to Tosha's or stay and I opted to stay. My body was not ready for another drive to their house and then back again for surgery. It was a good option since I sill wasn't keeping things down anyway. IV pain and nausea medication was awesome.
One sweet experience occurred Saturday night. Tosha was able to reach the full time missionaries in their area who reached out to the missionaries serving near the hospital and they came and gave me a priesthood blessing. I think this might have been the first time in my life that I received a priesthood blessing from people I didn't know at all. They were so young and so kind. They handle everything exactly right. The young elder who sealed the anoiting of oil and pronounced the blessing did so in a very deliberate and thoughtful manner. He didn't just say the common phrases, but seemed to seek to say that God wanted him to say. Gary and my dad both give blessings like that and it made me feel comfortable and confident in the things he said. Twice he said in different words to not worry about complications, that the Lord is mindful, and promises to send me peace if I seek it--even in the complications. Now, I am not one that worries much about "complications," but I thought about that a lot that night and what that might mean for me and what I was experiencing. More about that later.
So, I missed my flight, had to cancel my 5th Sunday presentation (well, postponed until September), and spent Saturday night in the Tacoma General Hospital.
Not my plan for finishing my trip to Tacoma.....
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