Cultivating a Life of Gratitude

I am committing myself, during 2010, to attempt to cultivate a greater awareness of how much I have to be thankful and grateful for by sharing my daily findings and musings with you. It is my hope that by blogging about gratitude, I will be more aware of what is going on around me in my life, my family, my friends' lives and our world.

September 13, 2010

Middle of the Night Adventure

2:30 a.m. I hear a groan and then some moaning ... what the heck crosses my mind ... Ross gets out of bed ... now I'm more fully awake.  He's twisting and turning in pain and then on the floor in the fetal position. I asked him a few questions about the location of the pain.  At first he thought it was a back spasm (so it was abdominal ruling out the appendix) but then it became more centralized in his lower back.  Okay - what's going on ... do we need to go to the hospital I ask him ... he thinks yes while dry heaving from the pain (TMI?! :)) I'm grateful I was able to remain very calm which isn't shocking but you never know how you'll react in an emergency type of situation (especially one that wakes you up in the dead of night).

(GRATEFUL!!!) I call my parents at 2:36 a.m.-ish and my Dad says he'll send my Mom right over and that it might be kidney stones.  We get dressed, the pain is still pretty bad for Ross, we get down to the car, my Mom shows up a little before 3 and we're off to the hospital.  Did you know that the lights change to green almost automatically at 3 a.m.?!  I was thankful for that little discovery.  The one light I sometimes have to wait for 3-5 minutes at, switched as soon as my tires rolled up to the intersection.

How amazing is it that we have two great hospitals within 10-20 minutes of us?  We got to the one in 10 minutes tops and Ross was checked in by 3:15ish.  A nurse immediately processed him and then we were brought back into a room where one nurse took his blood, got an IV line started in case they needed it, etc. We found out the name of our nurse for the morning would be "Comfort" - she was super nice and funny - we liked her name :).  I'm thankful I thought to bring a book, so I basically sat in his room and read for 2 hours while occasionally talking with him and the nurses and doctor.  The doctor diagnosed him pretty quickly with a kidney stone.  They took a CT scan, ran blood work, etc. and the CT scan showed a 4 millimeter stone working it's way out.  They pumped Ross with an anti-inflammatory drug and had to flush it with fluids and then we were pretty much on our way (minus filling 3 prescriptions at the pharmacy).  We were home and back in bed by 5:30 or so.

I'm grateful for catching a few hours of sleep before getting up for my first ever MOPS meeting at Grace Fellowship this morning.  It was a fun time and I'm really thankful E-man walked right into the kids program without hardly even looking back at me.  Ross, in the mean time, preached in chapel this morning (it was on the topic of the virgin birth - not exactly something one of his colleagues could just jump in 'winging it').  We all came home for lunch and then I took a nap while Ross brought E over to my Mom's because I started my piano teaching schedule today from 3:15-7:30!  SHEW!  So my Mom once again helped Ross be able to take it really easy this afternoon and catch up on rest.  Thanks Mom!  (She would have had E anyway while I was teaching but she had him a little extra because of the middle of the night adventure).

I'm looking forward to sleeping tonight!  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Ross to make it through the night without another incident.  We're hoping this little stone makes his grand appearance into the world sooner than later.  (Ha! :))

1 comment:

  1. Oh that sounds like it was awful but love how you find the small positives in the story! And how wonderful to have family near by to call in an instant like that. Hope he is feeling better soon!

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