Back to the Land of the Living... Maybe

I apologize to people who still read this... all two of you. I use this blog as a journal so I can sometimes get a little wordy. Sorry. I'll put some pictures in my next post.

The past month has been a whirlwind. After going to the ER for my headache and working through all of our feeding issues, we were starting to get into a routine. Ben is sleeping about 3 hours between feedings at night. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but 3 is a good average. During the day he likes to eat more often, usually every 2 hours. Again, sometimes he'll go longer or shorter. We usually get out for a couple errands every day. When August hit, we started to have meetings to go to and he always did great. He even was so happy for work meetings that he had a blowout at every single one! We were able to go to park day a couple times and get to school for some prep work. The days were ticking by until school started.

Then, Tuesday, August 18, decided to change everything. I blame the day. The next day (August 19) was Cassie's 21st birthday. On my 21st birthday, I spent the day in the ER with kidney stones. Well, someone is watching out for Cass and decided to give her birthday kidney stones to me. I woke up feeling fine, Ben and I got ready and were relaxing and then I started to have some back pain. I didn't think much of it but it didn't go away. In fact it just got worse. And worse. To the point that after a few hours I couldn't even pick up Ben without feeling a lot of pain. Matt was at work, so I decided to call Jenny and have her help me with Ben. I hadn't really decided what I wanted her to help me with- I guess just to calm him down since he was crying and I couldn't pick him up. She came over and immediately got Ben calm and then suggested we go to the hospital. She guessed that I had kidney stones. I agreed and while she was getting Ben ready I just laid on the floor in a ball. I was shaking and felt nauseous, and ended up throwing up before we left.

We got to the hospital and they had me do a urine test and get into a gown. I saw a couple nurses and a PA before they decided to put in an IV. I got poked twice before the IV was in and they could draw blood for testing, and luckily they were pretty quick at getting some pain meds in the IV. I think they could tell something was going on and I was in real pain. I also had a fever so they had to give me something for that. Around this time, Matt came and Jenny took Ben for a while. No one would let me have anything to drink just in case I needed surgery, and my mouth and throat were way dry. They finally got my blood work back, and said I had a pretty bad kidney infection. They said I had blood in my urine but wanted to do a CT scan to see if it was kidney stones. The scan confirmed a 4mm stone just at the top of my bladder and a 1mm stone in my kidney. The head doctor at the ER came in, along with two urologists, who all said they were concerned about the larger stone getting infected (the fever ended up being the reason I got such good care) and wanted to take it out. They said it could pass on its own, but were worried about the infection. We opted to get it out! The surgeon said he could get me into the operating room within a couple hours.

Jenny brought Ben back and Matt watched him while we waited to go to the OR. They got me prepped for surgery and put me under. They were going to go in and pull out the stone and then get me ready to go home. They ended up finding two stones in the same place and pulled them both out and put a stent in place to help drain everything out. Everything else went as planned and we headed home that night. The next day, my doctor called and said that I had a blood infection, which helped explain why I was so tired and sore everywhere. I had a terrible night the second night- my back was killing me, I had a headache, and a 102 degree fever. I called the doctor again and he said that all that was normal but called in another medicine.

I am slowly feeling better. Still weak, still sore, still bothered when I use the bathroom, but mostly okay. A couple days after surgery, I went in to the office to have the stent removed. That was a lot easier than I expected. The doctor told me that he thinks my kidney infection was from the urinary tract infection I got after I had Ben. He said that I was lucky that I came in to the ER when I did, and even luckier that the head doctor called the urology department. He said that I could have been very sick. So yes, I am very happy that I didn't get more sick than I did. However, I am frustrated that I was finally getting back to normal and then I got really sick. I missed back to school night and the first day of school. There's no way I could have gone in feeling how I did (Matt wouldn't let me), but I still was sad and watching the clock thinking about what they were doing.

What a crazy couple days. Please everyone cross your fingers that I can start getting healthy and get back to normal! No more hospital visits!