A very long night and a day

Do you know what these are? I hope you don't. Because if you do that means you know somebody or have been the unfortunate person to have a kidney stone. One of these is trying to kill my daddy. It all started at about midnight last night. He was doubled over in pain and apparently waiting to die while mommy slept downstairs completely unaware. Finally at two am he heard me start crying and mommy go in to my room. He came down and BEGGED her for help. What makes this story really dramatic, is that daddy does not have health insurance! So he and mommy sat by my bedside (well mommy sat, daddy writhed on the ground) and discussed their options. Mommy got the brilliant idea to put a heat pack on the place on daddy's tummy where it hurt. This knocked the pain in half and they were both able to grab about three hours of sleep. Daddy still hurt in the morning, but he was really trying to tough it out. But the kidney stone was tougher. We all went down to St. Mark's Emergency Room at exactly 9:00 a.m. We didn't leave until almost exactly 1:00 p.m. despite my repeated usage of the word home.

The E.R. was very upsetting for me. I did NOT like them putting an I.V. in my daddy or even them asking him for a urine sample. I was actually pretty good for the majority of the time though. I got to watch Super Why, Word World, Clifford, Martha Speaks and Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman.

Daddy was kind of a complicated patient too. He didn't present with the tell tale signs of a kidney stone. The pain wasn't radiating or even coming from the usual places! So he ended up having to get his first CT scan. Again, I did NOT like that. I cried (screamed) the whole time he was gone. Mommy cried too because she's pregnant, stressed, and sleep deprived. The poor nurse and rad tech kept trying to tell mommy it was nothing serious. Mommy knew that, but those dang hormones refuse to let an emotion get stopped in its tracks!

The happy ending to this story is that the meds they gave daddy in the hospital made him feel MUCH better and his stone is only 4 mm big so it should pass on its own. We also have some very good drugs available at home now. We even went swimming at the pool this afternoon. Yeah! I hope Daddy NEVER has to do this again.