Quints

Since I missed my last official day of work on Wednesday due to the inconvenience that is my husband passing kidney stones, I got around Thursday morning and went in to the office. I had cleaned my desk out on Monday, but had left a box of Kleenex, my 55 gallon drum of Germ-X and a can of Slim Jims - you know, just in case I needed to blow my nose, sanitize or have a snack. I finalized a travel claim, turned in my ID tag, hugged those that I wanted to hug and got the heck outta Dodge. I grabbed a Route44 sweet tea at the Sonic and went to the hospital, laptop in tow.

They had the internet blocked, so I sat in a horribly uncomfortable plastic recliner for roughly 8 or so hours and played spider solitaire, Zuma and Purple Place. Paul was still having trouble with nausea, wasn't producing any output because of the uncontrollable vomiting, and therefore was not even remotely close to passing any stones. Around 6:30 the urologist came in, checked the x-rays and CT, gave Paul the option of going home to pass them or just have them removed in the morning. He opted for an 8am surgery. The doctor warned, though, that he had a reputation for scaring stones out of patients and more than once he had scheduled someone for surgery the next day only to have them pass the stones during the night. We were open to anything, but considering how thing had gone, we weren't optimistic.

I went home to get the kids so they could see their daddy and in the meantime Paul showered and managed to eat and drink a little. We got back to the hospital around 8, the kids took advantage of playing on the empty extra bed and then Paul went to the bathroom while the kids were engrossed in Disney Channel. I tidied up the room until Paul poked his head out of the bathroom and said, "What does a kidney stone look like?" Now, while I've had one myself, I had to have mine surgically removed because it was roughly the size of a watermelon (Okay, so it was only 5mm, but considered "unpassable") so I have never seen a kidney stone live and in person. I said, "Honey, if you peed and something other than pee is in there, I would assume it would be a kidney stone."

They were awfully small and there were two. We called the nurse in and she put them in a specimen cup and went out to call the doctor. The urologist said he wanted to still keep him overnight and keep him on the surgery schedule, just in case.

About 30 minutes later he passed three more.

Yeah.

Fortunately, none of them hurt in the passing and he was promptly taken off of the surgery schedule at 7 the next morning when the urologist declared him to be fit as a fiddle. Paul has to make an appointment in a few weeks and they'll decide then if they're going to do lithotripsy to blow up the remaining stones in his kidney. I personally think we should pay off this hospital stay before we go makin' any more surgery plans. But they aren't my kidneys we're talkin' about and he's pretty adamant about NEVER. DOING. THAT. AGAIN. so we'll see.

We left the hospital around 9 Friday morning, dropped his prescription off at the pharmacy and went home. The kids had cleaned house (term used loosely, but still a very precious gesture) and were ecstatic to have their daddy back in the house. He settled into the recliner and I crawled into the big chair and we both took a nap. It was rainy, stormy, gloomy and we were both exhausted. The kids took turns snuggling with both of us and while I accomplished not a durn thing, it was a relaxing afternoon.

We went to Wal*Mart last night because we were out of important things like toilet paper and enchilada sauce. Plus I hadn't gotten Mom and Pops' wedding pictures developed yet, so I had to drop them off, too. Paul's back started hurting while we were there and we both went into a not-quite-panic mode until he decided that he had maybe just overdone it a bit. We grabbed a bite to eat at Sonic, (they are going to give me the key to the corporate headquarters I've given them so much business lately) went back to Wal*Mart to pick up the pictures, dropped Abby off with a friend, picked up 40 precious, precious Vicodin and headed back home.

Thank you so much to everyone who prayed and sent good thoughts our way. It was a stressful couple of days and even though he wasn't in any danger, it's still rough having a hurting/sick spouse. I appreciate you all so much.

Now we just have to come up with five names for our newest additions. He swears that if they caused him that much pain, by golly, they all get names. He also says we're claiming them on our taxes next year.