Emergency Room Fun

Before you panic at the title of this post, let me inform you that the trip to the emergency room at 2:00 this morning was FOR ME, Darrin, OregonDad - and not one of the precious children or the lovely OregonMom.
I discovered, as the night wore on, that the muscle strain/cramp that I was feeling in my side and back was actually getting worse as I tried to loosen it up. I googled my symptoms and came up with appendicitis, as I was pretty confident it wasn't a tumor that suddenly sprang into my abdomen, and I've some healthy fear of appendicitis after Mali's friend Amanda lost a third of her body weight coping with the aftermath of a burst appendix.

I stumbled up to the bedroom (I was downstairs in my writhing, stretching, grunting and occasional moaning state, so as not to bother the lately sleep-deprived OregonMom) and woke Susy to tell her I was going to explode at any moment. After she wrapped her sleepy brain around that statement, and my additional 'Yes, I think so" to her query of "Should I take you to the Emergency Room?" she leapt into action, only yelling at me once when I was doing one last thing on the computer for work in case it was the last thing I was able to do for work for some long, undefined period of time.

Susy drove me to the hospital, after alerting a near-somnambulant Andrew to our departure (he exhibited his concern for me later by going about his morning rituals as if nothing unusual had occurred, the brave kid.) At the hospital, the whirlwind of uniformed people quickly concluded that it was probably a Kidney Stone, which was then confirmed by a cat scan, after the administration of an IV and some wonderful drugs. The good news: It is a small stone, only 2mm, and I should be able to pass it in the normal course of events, though also with the normal amount of the fabled pain that comes with passing a kidney stone. We, the doctor, Susy and I, discussed the upcoming event in great detail, along with the upcoming further pain-relief medication. Only then did the kind doctor bring up the less-than-good news: there are several more of the little pearls waiting in each kidney for their turn in the sunshine.

I intend to become an expert in these things over the next couple of days, particularly in the whys and hows of their creation, with particular attention paid to measures available for countering these whys and hows.

Right now my overwhelming desire is for sleep, and as soon as I email some folks at work with news that I have not yet slept, but intend to -- and email my Canadian customers with the information they need this morning, I am going to bed.

Good night/morning/whatever/night.