Tonight, I'm thankful for drugs...

Prescription medicines that is.

We just got back from a trip to the Emergency Room. I took Bill in tonight (sunday night). He was in intense pain, enough to make a grown man cry in public, because of the pain. It was awful to see him hurting so bad. There was really nothing I could do to help him. I am used to working with laboring women. I have tricks and tools to help them to get through Labor. We work with it, and try to understand that it isn't a bad pain, a pain that means something is wrong, it is just your body working to do the amazing job of bringing forth a child, straight from Heaven! Not a walk in the park, it's hard work, but you know that it won't last forever (noone has ever been in labor for ever...) and, you get something wonderful at the end of it all. A beautiful baby.

Kidney stones however, aren't nearly as wonderful! I used to think, "Oh, Puuuuhlease...!" when I would hear talk of kidney stones being worse than labor (from men). I then had a dear friend who birthed a 10 + lb baby naturally, (this was before I was a labor doula and have now seen quite a few 10 + lb babies born naturally), then she had a kidney stone and told me it was way worse than labor! So, now I believe, and am a bit more sympathetic than I used to be. She described it to me this way; in labor, the contractions come and go, and you have breaks in between them. You KNOW you will have breaks in between them (even if you might not feel like it at the time, it is true). You KNOW that it won't last forever, and that you get a prize after it is over. Your baby...

With kidney stones, it can be constant pain, you don't necessarily know why (we happened to know this was probably kidney stones), in my friend's case she had no idea what her pain was all about! Until they knew, they wouldn't give her anything to mask the pain, and you have no idea how long you will be in pain. There is no bright light at the end of the tunnel. There is nothing happy to look forward to. It is just PAIN!!!!!!!!

Bill had some partial symptoms over a week ago, and that was why he was sent for the CT scan and ultrasound last tuesday. Being a holiday week, noone got back with him/us to let him know what the scans said, or what to do or expect when the kidney stone started to move. PAIN... and what to do about it...

Yesterday and today he had some slight symptoms, but... he hadn't had any pain yet, and we hadn't heard from anyone at the clinic about what the scans showed. (It was a holiday weekend and the clinic on post wasn't open since Wednesday, last week!)

Today Amanda wasn't feeling well, but she got ready and went to church. After the sacrament, Rebekah drove her home. After a nap she still felt really yucky, but asked if someone would come up and watch a movie with her. Rebekah was invited to dinner at her friend's house. So after we ate dinner, Sariah and I went and we were watching Notting Hill with Amanda. The little girls were watching Christmas movies downstairs, with Liam, and Bill went to lay down and watch something... that's when the pain hit. He tried taking a bath, but Liam came upstairs and kicked him out and took a bath himself. Bill came and got me from girls movie night, to tell me he was hurting and didn't know if he could deal with it. He tried sitting in the hot tub of water but it did little to offer any relief. Before long we were on our way to the hospital to the Emergency room.

After arriving, it took nearly an hour for us to get put into a room, and once the Dr. finally saw him, he was able to get DRUGS... then they took him off to get another CT scan and ultrasound done on his kidneys. The drugs worked really well, and he asked if we could just bring some home with us to keep on hand... ;-) The Dr. came back and confirmed that yes, it was a kidney stone. It is between 3-4 cm, in size. Most likely he will have to pass it... it was over 4 -5 mm, they'd have to go in and break it up (I think they do that with ultrasound waves or something like that), before it could pass. They sent us home with a prescription for serious drugs/meds, and a referal to call and get an appointment in the morning with a urologist.

So... until he passes the dumb stone, he will most likely be drugged, unable to drive (or operate heavy machinery...) and it could be a hard week for him. Oh, that's right, he'll be heavily drugged and won't feel (or possibly remember) a thing!

So, today, I was thankful for medicine, and Bill said he was thankful that he got through Thanksgiving weekend before he had to deal with this! Thankful, we didn't have to spend Thanksgiving Day in the Emergency Room at the hospital! Bill also said he is very thankful that the worst of the pain he suffered was at the hospital and not at home, so that the kids didn't have to see him in so much pain.