{The Stone of 2012}

Ever since I was pregnant with Ben, this family can't seem to find our way out of the doctor's office.  This time it was me.  Two words:

Kidney stone.

If you have ever had one, you know how painful they can be.  So much that usually I am doubled over in pain, convulsing on the hospital room floor begging for morphine.  It is an ordeal. This was my sixth stone since 2004. 

This time was actually my easiest one yet, thank goodness, although not without a lot of discomfort.  I didn't even go to the ER; I actually passed it on my own in the doctor's office when I was giving a urine sample.  It was small, so that was good in my book, even though it was still hard to handle.  Really, they are so painful when they are big -- way worse than childbirth without an epidural.  It is about 100 on a pain scale of 1 to 10.  The one before this was when Luke was 3 months old.  Clearly my body does not like pregnancy and prenatal vitamins and it likes to reward me with some lovely kidney and bladder pain. 

It is really hard to have a medical emergency with little ones.  You can't just leave.  We had to figure out who was going to take the kiddos all the while I am sweating, pacing and moaning.  Once I realized that the pain was getting worse, I immediately called my sister and she and Molly came racing over to watch Luke who was napping.  I really don't know what I would do if we didn't have family here to help. 

And Ben got to come with us.  The whole nursing factor creates a challenge since he doesn't take a bottle well, so we had to bring him and Chat just handled him as much as he could (thank goodness for the aquarium that was in the doctor's office that kept his attention). He eventually pooped out in the doctor's office with all the chaos...

He was snooring so loud.  And of course, he had to hold on to his favorite giraffe friend. 

The doctor ordered an ultrasound on my kidneys to determine if there are any more stones.  I find out the results today.  Here's hoping to be stone free!