My Absence

Some of you may be wondering where I've been since I haven't posted in almost two weeks. Jay and I, along with Lyle and Jania have been in Charlotte, NC. Jay and Lyle received their award that I wrote about here and Jania and I went along for the ride. Actually, there probably aren't many who are really wondering why there was a break in the posts because most of you who read this knew where we were. But in case there are some out there who didn't know that's why.

I had taken off work all last week, Monday through Friday. We didn't leave until Tuesday morning so I had big, big plans for Monday. I was going to pack, have my oil changed, update the blog for Christmas and write a fabulous post about our Thanksgiving, balance our checkbook, go to the library etc. That all came to a screeching halt Sunday evening.

I've been having some issues for the last few months with recurrent UTI's (urinary tract infections). I had to go see a urologist the middle of November and he set me up to have a wonderful test called an IVP. Let me be honest here - if a medical test comes with instructions telling you how to prep for the test you best block out the night before the test. You're not going to want to be anywhere but home. Anyway, this test was supposed to show if I had any masses growing on my kidneys or any kidney stones. The doctor would only call if there was something that needed to be addressed before my next appointment. By the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I assumed no news was good news and decided to quit worrying about it.

Fast forward to the Sunday after Thanksgiving and two days before we are supposed to leave for Charlotte and I have a pain in my right side. It was a different kind of pain that I'd had off and on for awhile. That combined with my high blood pressure was somewhat concerning me, but the doctor hadn't called so I figured everything was fine. That afternoon it kept getting worse and I had a feeling I was getting another UTI. Jay and I talked about it and we decided I should go to urgent care rather than trying to fit in a doctors appt on Monday. I headed to Springfield and Jay stayed home with Cade. I got into the doctor pretty quickly, which was great, but I didn't have a UTI. The doctor was concerned because of my symptoms and some other things that had shown up. He wanted to do a CAT scan to check for stones or a kidney mass. I asked about the IVP I had just two weeks earlier and he said that really wouldn't show the bad stuff if it was in the kidneys, only if it was in the tubes. Great, I'm at the doctor's by myself, scared because the doctor seemed pretty concerned and I was mad I had suffered through the IVP prep for apparently no good reason. Then to add insult to injury they had to run a pregnancy test before they'd do the CAT scan. No, I'm not going to "surprise" every one in this post and say it was positive. I waited at least 30 minutes for the stupid thing to come back negative (like that wasn't obvious) before I could have the real test.

After a few agonizing minutes the doctor finally came in with the results and thankfully I did not have a mass on my kidneys. I did have a 2mm kidney stone which was stuck in the kidney and not in the tract. I was surprised by this because I was in pain, but I wasn't in that much pain. I've heard of people rolling around on the floor because of the pain and mine clearly wasn't that bad. But they also found more than I had bargained for....gallstones and two ovarian cysts. I had been pretty concerned about this pain and the blood pressure thing for awhile so it was nice to have some relief from the worry. While driving home my relief turned to humor, which it normally does....I am a like surgeon's gold mine. For those of you who are more literal, no I don't need surgery, I'd only need it if 1. if the kidney stone got bigger then they'd blow it up 2. if the gallstones start bothering me 3. if the cysts didn't eventually go away... so for those of you thinking "she doesn't need surgery" just work with me here....I've got three things going on that could require surgery but yet are fairly simple procedures. If I visited a doctor who wanted a little extra cash he could make it off of me. Cha Ching!!! Hopefully I don't end up in the wrong hands in the ER someday! I've laughed over that for some reason. But yet it also explains a lot.

So that brings me back to Monday and why I didn't post anything. I was too worried about passing a kidney stone on a plane somewhere between KC and Charlotte. It's definitely a thought that halted my productivity last Monday. Fortunately Lyle, Jania, Jay and I along with the cysts and the stones (If I were smarter I could make some funny rock band comment there like The Stones are so old they started touring with The Cysts and they're coming to a hospital near you, but right now it's not coming to me) made it home safe and sound Sunday morning.

I've got some really good pictures to post so stay tuned!