Like a rolling stone...

...except this one is stuck.
My absence of the last few weeks has been due in large part to the kidney stone that has lodged itself in a place it shouldn't be. After waiting a couple of weeks, and getting false information from the supposed doctor at the ER, it has been determined that the best course of action is to remove this sucker. So, on Tuesday, I will be knocked out, and a tube/scope will be sent up my body through a normally exit-only location. The stone will be caught in some kind of basket mechanism and removed, and hopefully, in a day or to, I will be fine. My husband thinks we should just have our neighbor, who is a master at the claw machine, remove it for me. With my ever-decreasing confidence in the medical field, I may just consider that option. Would I also get a prize? And would it only cost 50 cents? And seriously, if it were between him and the ER doc I saw last week, I'd go for Mike. My ER visit last week was my second in nine days. It was a different ER from the first, because I swore I'd never go back to the first hospital, and my urologist's office is in the second hospital. Great! I was the only non gang member under the age of 80 in this particular ER. After a two hour wait to be taken back, I was placed in a broken bed with no blanket. I had to lay flat on my back covered with just a thin sheet, and when I say this hospital was drafty, I am not kidding. After having my bp and temp taken, I was left alone for an hour. Finally, a doc arrives and send me off to be x-rayed. She returns to tell me that the stone is no longer visible, so I must have passed it. (Likely during my three-hour wait to be seen.) I go home. My pain level is decreased, but I am not pain-free.
I make an appointment with the urologist for a follow-up. On the way I pick up copies of the EXACT x-ray the ER doc looked at. My urologist takes a peek and tells me that indeed, my stone is still there. Confused, I relay the ER doc's declaration that I am stone free. Nope. Urologist takes me to view the x-rays and says, there it is, plain as day, in the same exact spot as before. He actually has the first set of x-rays as well, and the stone is actually more visible in the x-ray where there is no stone. I guess the ER doc missed the class on reading x-rays. I fear for those with life-threatening injuries and ailments. And someone should really do something about med student absenteeism.

Birthing a bicycle

This morning I gave birth to a bicycle. At least, that's how I felt at several points during the spinning class I took this morning. I will be more specific since I've already made an ass out of myself once today (that I'm aware of). After the class, in the locker room, several of the women who had attended were discussing the class and its intensity and how much the saddle hurt. And I piped up with "I don;t think it hurt that much when I gave birth." I realize that made it sound as if bicycling were akin to labor and delivery of babies. That wasn't exactly what I meant. I meant that, post-childbirth, my hoo-ha wasn't nearly as sore as it felt while spinning away on the stationary bike. I should point out that I'm only referring to the birth of my second child. When Thing 1 was born, despite her minuscule, barely over 2 1/2 lb. size, there were stitches, surgery, catheters involved, and it didn't feel good...at all. But with Thing 2, despite her being a pound bigger, I felt fine as soon as I was allowed out of bed. Pregnancy wreaks havoc on my poor old body. Childbirth, well, that I can do alright. The L & D nurse told me, just after delivering thing 2, that I was made for birthing babies. Course, that can evoke images of a portly woman squatting in the fields to deliver her tenth child, then packing new baby in a sling and continuing her field work. I ain't that kinda woman.

Pondering

I have decided that this blog isn't the best place for my ponderings on being a preemie mom. I have copied the post below and used t to begin a new blog. Visit me there!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

Today is the anniversary of the day that I became a Mommy. Three years ago, I gave birth to my first child, a daughter. We had waited for this day for what seemed like forever, but it was sooner than we had thought, sooner than we had hoped, sooner than we had wanted. Our daughter’s due date was May 26^th. This day was 82 days too soon. At 28 weeks 2 days gestation, she was a good size at 2 lbs. 12 oz. She was a mere 14 ½ inches long. I had to take the word of my husband and my mother when they told me how beautiful and perfect she was. At this exact hour, 10:55 p.m., she was just over 19 hours old, and I still hadn’t seen her. Well, I guess one could argue that that may not be entirely true. As she was wheeled out of the delivery room in her little incubator, I was allowed to take a peek. The doctors were still attempting to deliver the placenta, and I was in a Stadol induced haze. I saw mostly blanket, with a little bit of pink. I assume that was her face, but from a few feet away, it was nothing recognizable to me. Our daughter was here, and then she was gone. I heard her cry, a teeny tiny wisp of a cry, before they took her away. I exhaled, for just a moment. I remember asking the nurse just as she emerged if she had chubby cheeks. They must have thought I was crazy. “No, honey, she doesn’t have chubby anything.” And off my little bundle went.

Off I went in another direction, to the operating room to have a D & C. I couldn’t keep my daughter in, but I couldn’t get the placenta out.

I had developed preeclampsia a few days before her birth, and as a precaution, was put on magnesium sulfate after delivery to ward off any post-childbirth seizures. Mag is a horrible drug. You feel as if you will spontaneously combust, and your muscles feel like they are melting. You are not allowed to eat for fear you will choke and aspirate your food, and you must remain in bed. My baby had been taken to the NICU, a floor above me, and I was stuck in a recovery room. My husband, my mother, even my friend and her daughter, all saw my tiny baby while I lay a floor below. The NICU sent down some blurry Polaroids. Looking back now, I can see how terrible the pictures are. In a digital world, they were almost primitive, but they were like gold to me. I propped them up on the bedside table and stared. It was the closest I was going to get to my own daughter for now. When I finally saw her, she would be nearly 24 hours old. It was the middle of the night and I could barely stand on my own two feet. My husband wheeled me up to the NICU and helped me into Nursery 3, where our little baby was. I stared at my child, hooked up to a ventilator, with intravenous lines in her umbilical stump and monitor leads stuck everywhere. Her diaper was laying under her, open but unfastened. She was no longer in a cozy little incubator. She lay in an open bed, a warmer a few feet above her little body keeping her from getting cold. Machines were beeping and hissing. The nurse told me what they were doing for her and how she was faring. I’m not sure I heard any of it. At that moment, I was unable to let any of the delicacy of her situation overshadow the joy I felt looking at her. Maybe it was the drugs, but I like to think it was a mother's love.

After a relatively brief visit, my husband brought me back to my room, and he went home, both of us exhausted. I quickly fell asleep, only to be awakened an hour or so later by a nurse, who informed me I would be moving across the floor. Off I went, into a new room and a new bed, my baby's pictures still with me. Sleep did not return easily. My mind had begun its race, winning out over my exhausted body. I stared into the dim light above my bed and recalled my visit to my newborn daughter's bedside. Suddenly, the euphoria had worn off. I realized she was in a grave situation. The next couple of days were critical, and even then, if she’d made it through, she wouldn’t be out of the woods. I surrendered and the tears fell. I lay in my hospital bed, on the day I became a mother, shaking and sobbing, trying not to make a sound. I was all alone. I was terrified. And all I could do was cry.

What is this world...

...coming to???

These were taking up two shelves in the freezer at the grocery store...TWO SHELVES????

The real question is whether or not voter turnout will exceed that of the last presidential election.

Now when they had the election for the new M & M color eons ago...that was a worthy election.