Words cannot express how much I was looking forward to yesterday morning. Both boys had school, and my plan was to head home after dropping off Finn at Cottage and enjoy a couple of hours of sheer solitude in my own home – a much-too-rare occurrence. I had a book to read and a nap to take.
However, just as I arrived at Cottage, I got a call from Bruce who said he had a serious stomach ache and hadn’t gone in to work (he’d tried to ride in, but quickly figured out he wasn’t going to make it). My first thought, selfishly, was “No! This is supposed to be my alone time!” But, once I got home and saw his face I knew he was in some serious pain. I’ve been with him when he broke his leg and when he was in the ER for chest pain, and neither registered the kind of pain he seemed to be in yesterday. After a quick call to his regular doc, I took him to the ER.
He was miserable, but we were lucky enough to have arrived at the ER when it was uncharacteristically empty. We got right in to a room and the nurse started a work up. He was struggling so much with the pain that I was having a hard time keeping it together. We had read a bit online before going to the hospital (of course) and we thought he might have appendicitis. Thus, I was wondering WHY ISN’T THE DOCTOR IN HERE YET???!!!
Turns out, it was a kidney stone. Extremely painful, but not life threatening. Once we knew this (and once he had not one but TWO doses of morphine in his IV), we both calmed down a lot. He had a CT which found a 4 mm stone, and we were sent home with some Vicodin. He passed the stone later that evening with no pain (thanks to the aforementioned Vicodin).
Here’s a shot of the actual stone.
Here’s what he said it felt like.