December 24, 2006

• MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

   

  
  

  Merry Christmas

  
  

   

  
  

  
  
  We’re busy today getting ready! Wrapping packages and gettng set for Christmas. Are you ready?
  
  This year we’re having our family Christmas on Christmas Eve, since we are headed over to our daughter Kelly’s house tomorrow for Christmas Day.

  
  

  
  It’s her first Christmas in their new home! She is excited to have everyone over…

  
  

  
  

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  Christmas Eve, or how we spent this morning…

  
  

   

  
  

  When we went to bed last night, we were looking forward to sleeping in this morning, getting ready for Christmas and then having our own family Christmas Eve together.

  
  

   

  
  

  Well, that’s not how it went. I awoke this morning at 6:30 with a sharp stabbing pain in my left side. By sharp I mean like someone put a sharp knife into my side and kept it there.  I tried to go back to sleep, but no go.  The pain just kept getting worse.

  
  

   

  
  

  One of my first thoughts was that I had a kidney stone, but since I’ve never had one before I didn’t know if this was what they felt like. Kerri got up and did some research on the internet while I tried to walk off the pain. But the pain just kept getting worse, and then I started to feel nauseous. Kerri then called the advice nurse at the local hospital. After he asked me a few questions he said Kerri should drive me to the ER since he also thought I had a kidney stone.

  
  

   

  
  

  When we got to the ER the pain had subsided a little it, enough where i could function and talk with the nurse. They ran some tests, and they then wanted to put in an IV to get me some fluids as well as have a way to get some pain meds in to me, as he said the pain would be pretty bad when it came back.  But it appears I have small narrow veins. They tried in 5 different places to get an IV in, but it kept blowing out when they tried to put fluids in, so they had to skip that. 

  
  

   

  
  

  By then the CT scan was ready for me and they wheeled me over there……but while I was waiting the next cycle of pain came along as the stone started moving again. I couldn’t believe how quick the pain started in.  They say that the actual size of a kidney stone is usually like this:

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  But it felt like it was this:

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  The comparison I heard before is true – it feels lilke you are giving birth to a Buick, and not one of those nice new smooth and sleek ones but the old ones!

  
  

   

  
  

  The pain was so bad I wasn’t able to hold still for the CT scan, so they had to give me some pain meds. After a shot for the nausea as well as a morphine shot, I felt better and they were able to get the CT scan done. The CT scan didn’t find a stone passing, but it could have been smaller than the slices the CT took. But the bad news is that I have another stone waiting in the wings…

  
  

   

  
  

  Then I had a short but powerful morphine induced nap (semi-coma?) and when I woke up I could tell I felt a lot better. When that wore off I didn’t have any pain come back, so they think that I may have passed the stone while under the morphine. That would be great, since some people have to deal with the pain on and off for a week before it passes.

  
  

   

  
  

  So that was how our day started. We met up with our friend Randy to exchange gifts, and then we get together as a family to exchange our Christmas presents with each other. Then Brian said he wanted to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” – lo and behold - when we turned on the TV to see if we could find it there it was!! So we’re watching it right now.

  
  

   

  
  

  We’ll post some pics next week of our Family Christmas!

  
  

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  Christmas fun…

  
  

  This part is  a repeat from the post from yesterday, just because it was so much fun…

  
  

  Thanks to Dawn I found a link to the Elf kingdom.  We we’re were able to make Kerri an honorary Elf last night, and you can see the results here.
  
  http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=545d8ec6a8e70237ea40bbeG06122222
  
  

  • 10:00 pm
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