Wretched Kidney Stones and Other Reasons For My Silence

That's pretty much the reason for my blogging silence lately. We've been spending time with our girl and entertaining company and I've been spending way too many hours on the phone with customer service in an attempt to restore our Internet service after a very gregarious storm paid us a visit earlier in the week. We did get almost 2" of rain out of the deal, but it was wild. I talked to people in  India, Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Michigan in order to get our satellite back in working order. Frustrating does not begin to describe the fun involved in that process. :)

I was also down for the count for a good week with a bout of kidney stones that kind of has a funny story. I am an avid reader of Judy's blog  - Patchwork Times - and she has been dealing with multiple kidney stones. I felt so bad for her. I had been talking to DH about it and then began feeling kind puny myself. I figured I had just strained my back or something, and when it started getting worse, I wondered whether it could  be a kidney stone. I had never had one before, but it was getting mighty painful. DH chuckled and said I might be carrying my sympathy for Judy a bit too far. Turns out, I really DID have a kidney stone attack. I kept trying to go about my days  figuring I was uncomfortable no matter what I did or didn't do. So I mowed and ran the weed eater and hauled wood and just tended to the things that needed tending to around here. That was all good and well until I would have such a hard pain that it would drop me to my knees. DH insisted I stop all the nonsense and see the doctor when I tried to crawl back to the house. The only position that even remotely made the pain manageable was to drape myself over the ottoman and I'm fairly certain that looked rather ridiculous. We had company coming too. Thankfully, we have adopted them as family and I figured they wouldn't mind if I looked like a wet noodle, although even my relationship with the ottoman was touch and go. So I finally caved in to DH's insistence that I visit the doctor who fussed at me for waiting so long. I had my first ever CT scan and went a few rounds with the hospital who wanted to bill me for an ER visit. I wasn't sent to the ER, but they tried to funnel me through there because it was 4:00 on a Friday afternoon. Well, it wouldn't have been 4:00 if they hadn't made me wait in the hospital lobby for 2 hours after the doctor had sent me there for a CT scan with STAT orders. Sigh. I minded my manners, but I was persistent and told them it was a waste of everyone's time and money.This was NOT an emergency.

So needless to say, the kidney stone is no longer hanging around and here's hoping it was an isolated incident. I cannot wrap my head around how something that tiny can cause that much pain. and Judy, here's hoping you're soon pain free and rid of those pesky pebbles.

Now our girl has flown the coop for a little while, company has headed back down the road, our Internet has been restored, and I figured it was about time I pop in here and let y'all know that I hadn't fallen off the face of the earth and even if I had, I would have had a firm grip on my trusty ottoman and thus, it would have been a soft landing.