Were any of you driving on I-20 just outside of Atlanta Monday night around 6? Did you happen to see a woman pulled over to the side of the road throwing up behind her van? THAT WAS ME. Yuck.
I was on my way from Birmingham to Anderson with 2 of my 3 girls. I was going to pick up my middle child who had been in Atlanta with my in-laws for a little one on one time. Everything was going along great. We had just wrapped up a wonderful weekend with family in Birmingham and it was time to get back home and back to the daily grind. Tooling down the interstate, I was mentally planning my week and then it hit me. BAM! A kidney stone was on the move. I have had kidney stones for about 8 years now so I knew exactly what was going on. It is a pain like no other. The pain is so acute and so intense, it could level a lumberjack without breaking a sweat. Labor can’t even throw a rock at kidney stone pain. Trust me – I speak from experience. Unfortunately I was in the middle of traffic on the interstate with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. All of my tricks for easing the pain were no good behind the wheel. Robert was not with me so I didn’t have anyone else to drive.
Someone, however, was watching out for me. I managed to make it safely to the hotel where my in-laws were. I dropped off the girls and the dog (did I mention that I had the dog?) with my father-in-law. I climbed in the car with my mother-in-law and we headed for the ER. By the time we got there I was crawling on the floor begging every pair of feet I encountered for morphine. Of course, the ER was FULL. Packed to the brim with miserable people waiting to hear their name called. I’m sure I scared my mother-in-law to death. I am usually a strong person. I can usually keep a level head. Kidney stones reduce me to a shaky moaning heap of a person.
Six hours later, an angel of mercy finally arrived. My angel was named Jenny. I swear she was glowing like the Madonna in a stained glass window. She was carrying a smile in a syringe and relieved my agony in a matter of seconds. She had been the only triage nurse on duty for over 10 hours. She had gotten to me as soon as she possibly could. The people in charge of budget cuts should be forced to spend a shift in her shoes. They’d never cut money from the nursing staff budget again. Enough on the soapbox….
The point is that we all survived the ordeal. My girls and I are back home and I am waiting for this stone to pass. I have everything I need to get through the next phase. My parents are here with me for a few days because Robert is out of town on business (these things ALWAYS happen when he’s out of town) and I have a bottle of relief if I need it. I am supposed to rest and take it easy over the next couple of days. Do you know how hard that is for me? Tres difficile!
It is all a brutal reminder that no matter how much I organize, clean and plan, I am not in charge. Kidney stones or not, we must all admit that, in the grand scheme of things, we are not in charge. We need someone to look out for us. We need angels of mercy. We cannot do this dance of life alone. We are mere mortals and despite what we humans think, we do NOT know everything.
PS – To Jenny – I will forever love you and I am forever in your debt. If you suffer from kidney stones, you know why I love this woman. It’s not weird, it’s just common sense!
