May 28, 2007
Stoned in May
It was Tuesday the eighth and K. and I were working outside on the patio by the pool. The pain started as a cramp in my lower left side and I recall complaining about it then, although it didn't keep me from accomplishing some work that afternoon.
On Thursday of that week I got up and brewed a pot of tea, and after sitting down with the first cup it only took about five minutes before I was writhing on the floor in pain.
Mark called for an ambulance. It seemed the right thing at the time. I could barely walk and was ashen.
They came within minutes; three guys who asked me some surprising questions on the way to the emergency room. Once there the triage nurse had me registered as a walk-in, which seemed odd, but I wasn't feeling as much pain by then.
It took over three hours for a doctor to see me, and when he did arrive I was in the washroom trying to relieve myself, which was soon a problem as he wanted a urine sample. When he realized that wasn't going to happen quickly he told me to leave and "come back if it gets worse."
Super.
The next couple of days proved to be a mix of business meetings with me grimacing as I toured a vendor's facility, four AM enema's after pacing the house in pain for hours, flop sweat drenched naps and enough Advil to fill a small SUV.
Very early on Saturday morning we ended up at the emergency room again. Mark drove me when he found me moaning at my desk. Once there we were told it was probably going to be at least six hours before seeing a doctor. We left and I took more Advil. Luigi followed me from room to room and slept with his head on my shoulder when I managed to stay in bed.
The next morning I woke from another fit fill night and thought I might be out of the woods. No pain for almost four hours... but then, by noon it was back, and more intense than ever. It wasn't gas. It wasn't constipation. There was a kidney stone trapped on it's way to the bladder and it felt like a rusty sharp fork was being stuck in my side every 30 seconds.
Off to the emergency room. I was moaning as they registered me, telling them I was brought in by paramedics last Thursday morning. "Oh, they are already in records", the admitting clerk dismissed.
We moved into the waiting area and after a few minutes the pain worsened even more. I couldn't sit upright and started to feel myself losing consciousness. Lights, voices and a gurney appear.
A nurse appears. She is young and sympathetic. She wonders why I was sent home on Thursday. She asks for my records.
I am wheeled into a room, Mark is at my side. Clothes off, in a robe and then in bed. They come in to tell me that an IV is coming shortly. The pain is unbearable.
She makes jokes as she inserts the IV. One arm doesn't work, and she moves to the other one.
"I'm going to put your chart in front of the doctor."
It's just a few minutes before she is back with him.
"You have the classic signs of kidney stones. We are going to get you out of pain very shortly."
I could have kissed him.
"Have you ever had morphine?", the nurse asked when she returned. I moaned no to answer. My tears were running down my face into my ears.
"You are probably going to feel a metallic taste in the back of your mouth. And then a rushing sensation..."
Ten minutes later I was smiling and joking. Mark left to attend to Mother's Day celebrations and I laid in that bed for a couple of hours admiring how wonderful the world was, despite it containing kidney stones.
May 7, 2007
The Lone Tulip
This lone tulip keeps coming back every year... despite being trampled.
May 4, 2007
The pool is open
For the last seven years there is a certain day that comes every spring, changing my family's quiet life in the burbs in a surprisingly number of ways.
It is the day that the pool is uncovered, which was yesterday. The view from the living room changes in an hour from a blue tarp with an algae sauce disappointment to a blue-on-blue swirling waterscape complete with a gurgling brook sound that is accomplished by adjusting the jet just so...
Sure it would take $200 to heat it right now, but for the time being I can wait for the hot summer sun that is surely coming. Right now sitting on the patio, writing this on the laptop, I am thankful for what I have, encouraged by the new business venture and with two dogs dozing in the spring sunshine at my feet thinking just how lucky one can be.