I *Knew* Things Were Going Too Well...

Let's see...today is October 20.  Exactly one week ago, my world got rocked again--and not in a good way.  Since I've been a bit tight-lipped about life lately, let me take you back in time to three weeks ago...(cue dreamy music and that hazy, dreamy feature on TV that lets you know you're going back in time)

I actually got a teeny, tiny raise this school year.  Husband is still looking for work, but we've decided that we were going to make the plunge around January and try to purchase a home in the town we both work in. (me at the school, him part-time at the radio station)  This is the town where we go to church, attend social functions, the whole nine yards.  We hadn't looked seriously at moving b/c of our job situation, but the savings in gas alone would almost pay for 1/2 a house payment.  Plus, it's a bigger town than we live in now, with access to a larger town and more employment opportunities for husband.  We were looking--had found a really good house--were getting ready to go look at it, began filling out the loan papers...The plus to this house was: it had a basement, was in a good neighborhood, had 4 bedrooms/3 baths (which was really a big deal b/c we don't qualify for foster/adoption in our current house), a nice backyard--it looked perfect.  We hadn't gotten our hopes up yet, though, because we knew this was going to be a several-month-long project.  We'd prayed that God would help guide us as we picked a house and wanted one that would become our home. 

***But you know how you get that little voice that tells you things are going TOO well?***

Yeah, should've listened to that voice.  On Oct 13, I woke up at 8:30 with some killer pains---the tell-tale signs of the serious kidney infection I seem to get every 8 months or so.  I don't get any of the warm-up UTI signs.  I'm just fine one minute and in absolute agony the next--and this pain hurt worse than my miscarriage did (it was all physical, whereas the other one was physical and heartbroken and desolation).  Since I knew what it was, I padded off to the bathroom and looked to see if I still had any antibiotics left over from the last time this had happened---yup, I had 4.  I thought it would be enough to hold it off until I could see the doctor on Monday.  Well, 2 hot baths, hot pads, and tylenol later, it was getting worse.  I called hubby to have him come home ASAP, and by the time he arrived, I was throwing up.  We decided to go to the ER, but since we live in a very rural area, the closest ER we have is one hour away.  That one hour trip lasted longer since we had to pull over for me to upchuck on the side of the road (real classy, right?).  I was admitted to the ER, then my mom arrived so hubby could go to work.  When the morphine wasn't knocking out the pain, they sent me in for a CT scan, which showed....a GIANT kidney stone that had blocked my kidney (seriously, it's the size of a marble trying to get through a hole the size of a small crochet hook).  When my nausea was increasing, my blood oxygen decreasing, and my pain intensifying, they decided to rush me in for emergency surgery.  I ended up having a stent put in from my kidney to my bladder (it's like a bendy straw--and yes, you feel it every time you have to pee).  The original plan was to remove the stone during that procedure, but the surgeon told me later that as the stent went in, green pus boiled out.  It turns out I was less than an hour away from the infection becoming septic.  It was really, really, really serious.  I made it through the surgery fine, but had to wait in the recovery room b/c of a tornado warning (nope, totally not making any of this up--my imagination is good, but not that good).  When I finally made it to my room, I was feeling TONS better.  However, during the night, my blood pressure bottomed out twice, and I woke up hearing the nurses surrounding my bed adding fluids and talking to me to try to keep me from going from bad to worse.  I obviously made it through the night, but it was touch and go for a while.

I'll tell you part two and part three tomorrow, because this trauma alone wasn't enough to mark my first patient visit to a hospital in 30 years.  No, it had to get worse, and while I'm home now, I'm still recovering and awaiting a second surgery in two weeks.