There are times when I am astounded by how things work. Today is one of those. Its Monday and I took off a couple of days because a couple of family members are in town from North Carolina. The plan was to goof off and have fun — much like we did yesterday and Saturday. But around 4 a.m. my sister woke me up asking if I had any pain medication in the house. Next thing I knew, she was huddled up on the floor writhing in pain. What a wake up call.
She said it was probably a kidney stone. She had one last fall and knew what this was like. I wasn’t there last fall. So I got some pain meds, some water, an ice pack, moved my youngest nephew out of the writhing zone and she waited to see if her doctor could help.
What a horrible feeling. Surely nothing to match her physical pain, but its horrible to see someone you love that sick and be unclear what to do. I messaged my nieces to see who may pick up the nephew and we began trying to figure out the insurance issues and getting ready for the drive to the hospital.
The folks at Baptist Hospital did an incredible job. They got the basics filled out and got us moving back to emergency where we quickly had a nurse. Within an hour, my sister’s body was relaxing a bit and we could sense that it would be alright even if it would be quite a while before we left. There were more tests to do, other issues to deal with but wow, what a feeling of release.
Just yesterday we had been down at the river and last night had dinner with a big crowd of our family & friends. So quickly something in your body can change. And thanks to incredible science, we understand what’s wrong, what the path forward looks like and how to make everything “alright.” Rather than complain about how crappy the luck is, I’ll focus on a couple of things I should be thankful for:
- Spending time with family even though they live far away cause this weekend was awesome.
- How I’m grateful Cheryl was at my house rather than a hotel somewhere away from family.
- Incredible doctors & nurses so close by who took time to talk to us to figure out how to help quickly.
- Yep, I’ll even give a thankful shoutout to just having her sleep so well most of the afternoon.
And I’ll plan on a good night’s sleep tonight — for both of us.
