This week was insane. We had a ton going on. It was Jim’s tough week (the one week a month where he has council meetings, court, zoning board, and more stuff than I can keep up with). I had a couple meetings. I had volunteered myself to work at a spaghetti dinner fundraiser. Sometimes plans change. Sometimes for not pleasant reasons. I woke up Wednesday morning in extreme pain. It was 2 am, and in my sleep deprived state, I convinced myself I had some sort of brutal flu. I took some Advil, and hit the recliner. It did not help. I got up at 5 to run the bus route. I felt like I had a person stabbing me in the side and kicking me in the back simultaneously. I took a couple Tylenol and headed out anyway. The longer I drove, the more I wished I had called in. But it was too late. I had a company coming to slip line a pipe, I have inspections I need to finish, and the weather was supposed to be in the 70’s. I was determined to muscle through. I got to work, started gathering my supplies and the pain intensified. I simply couldn’t take it anymore. I called Jim and told him I needed him to get Evie from her bus and I was going home to take a nap. I came home and laid down, but then I absolutely knew I was not going to make it without medical intervention. My side hurt so bad! I was happy our doctor could get me in before lunch. At least with the nurse practitioner. She looked me over, did labs, and told me although she thought it might be a bladder infection, her gut said I should get a CT scan to rule out appendicitis. So she sent me on to Topeka. I’ll spare you the details, but getting the scan done, getting it read, having them tell me to go home because it was a kidney stone and would just have to pass took 4 entire hours. When they told me to go home, I was literally throwing up from pain, shivering with a fever, crying, and the side pain was so intense I would have let someone put me down. I called my doctor back. The same nurse practitioner told me to go to the ER and she would call to have me admitted without having to wait. Unfortunately, although they agreed to let me skip the ER process, they had no immediate beds available, so I sat in the ER for another 3 hours! By the time they called me back I was desperate. Literally would have agreed to anything just for some relief. And as it turned out, there was a nephrologist on call. I was on a bed 5 minutes when he came in, gave me pain meds and said ma’am, you are a very, very sick woman. I reviewed your test results. You have a large kidney stone causing a blockage. Your kidney is inflamed and infected and your blood is septic. We need to admit you right now and do surgery immediately. So that is how I went from waiting for 7 hours, to having surgery 5 minutes later. I asked him if I could at least text my family first since they had no clue what was going on. He said yea, I sent my husband and kids a text saying having surgery right now- and being admitted. No time to wait for their response as they were wheeling me to surgery.
They placed a stent. I had immediate relief. That was not what they cared about at the hospital. Sepsis is a bad thing to be diagnosed with. They ran more blood cultures and blood pressures than I even knew was possible, and refused to let me up, let me walk or let me get out of bed to shower. I about went stir crazy because honesty, with the side pain gone, I felt just fine.
I finally got the green light to get out of bed on Friday. Finally got released Saturday after promising to come to the outpatient center and have IV antibiotics for several days. I will have to finish the IV stuff, then take oral antibiotics for a few days and then will have to go in for an outpatient surgery to have the stone and the stent removed. I am feeling completely normal. As I was checking out on Saturday, the hospitalist literally told me he was so happy I was walking out of there, as he wasn’t convinced that would be the case. That was a little eye opening. I am very blessed that I was given another chance to live life. I have thought about it a lot today. I have tried really hard to live a life of no regrets. I feel like my life is blessed beyond measure. I was given an amazing family, a great supportive (and goofy as hell) husband, the resources to never go hungry, or lack for work or a roof over my head. I am spending the rest of the days I have left on this earth doing things that reflect how truly lucky I am. And I thank God for his protection, and for putting me in a place with adequate medical care.
One thing I was sort of sad about, Cameron and Lauren were in Wichita this weekend for a wedding The plan was to go down and spend Sunday with them. I told Jim to take the kids and go. The big boys decided they would drive up here instead. Colin, Cameron and Lauren drove up. We got pizza and all 8 of our kids were under one roof. We also had Andrew, Evelyn and Lauren here! We were sad Spencer had a test and could not come, but having everyone else here was amazing and made me incredibly happy!
Preston and Andrew talked us into going to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. I’m so happy I felt up to going.
I am overwhelmed by how lucky I am!
Last night, Quincy went out with friends. She called and asked if she could dye her hair. We don’t care about hair. At all. I told her sure. She FaceTimed me instantly and it was an awfully good thing I didn’t say no! Such a dork!
My mom watched Evie while I was laid up. I cannot tell you how much I missed her crazy in my days! She told GG that she gave me her cold, and that it made me have a stroke! Today she told me she was glad my stroke was better. Me too kid! Me too!
This week - we do normal. Repeat NORMAL!
