Another Hospital Visit

This week has been an eventful week and it's not over yet. It started out on Monday in the ER with Doug. He had some extreme pain in the lower stomach area. He had been talking about some pain for a couple of weeks and we came to the conclusion that he had an inguinal hernia. We are no strangers to hernia's. Two of the girls had a total of 5 hernia's and had them fixed. I popped two hernia's 16 years ago when I was pregnant with Pierce and Creed now has two as well. We most definitely have a genetic disposition for this. While in the ER the pain subsided and the Doctor decided it truly was a hernia. The hernia is on the right side and most of the pain was on his left. It made no sense. What did the doctor say? "Sometimes our bodies don't know what they are feeling" We were out and on our way in an hour.

I have to admit, I was less than sympathetic towards Doug. I have lived with hernia's for 16 years and through 4 pregnancies and lifting many children. I have never let it stop me from anything including moving furniture and all other hard labor. Sure it can be painful and at times have a dull ache that lasts for weeks to months even knowing how to take care of them. I tried to teach Doug but he wasn't too interested.

Tuesday Doug had an appointment with a surgeon to schedule surgery. If the hernia was causing that much pain it needed to be fixed immediately. We walked out with an appointment for Friday morning and an education on how to care for the hernia. Hmm, I think I told him all the same things. The doctor could clearly see I was thinking Doug was a wimp and he was right.

Wednesday morning came bright and early. 5:30 to be exact. It had been a late night so I was surprised Doug was up. Doug started moaning a little and eventually got out of bed. By 6:00am he was shaking and moaning so much that he kept me awake. I was not a happy camper so when he came in the bedroom just before 7:00 and said he needed to go to the ER I felt pretty impatient. I reminded him what to do to push the hernia in and told him to push harder. He said once again he needed to go in. I quickly got out of bed, dressed but did not brush my hair for some reason. I regretted that one. I gave the closest child instructions to get all the kids off to school and we were gone.

In the ER Doug was in terrible pain. The doctors were at a loss as to why it was so bad. Hernia's don't cause that pain. I saw evidences of the severity when Doug turned gray and his vitals would spike as he would begin to moan. They gave him pain meds that did nothing. They then tried another medicine that was fast acting but also left the system quickly. This one took the sever pain away but only lasted 20 minutes.  This was no hernia!! The doctors did an ultrasound and found nothing. They then did a CT scan. Doug and I sat there hoping and praying that it was not something life threatening. I, in no way, wanted to bury my husband and a son. So many emotions. I had to fight for faith. Faith in the Lord's will. Faith that I could do anything he asked and faith enough to feel peace.

The surprise results came back as a Kidney stone. A good size kidney stone. The symptoms did not appear as kidney nor anything the doctors had ever seen. From there a plan was laid out. We were admitted to the hospital for pain management and a urologist was called. The urologist put Doug on the schedule for surgery that afternoon to extract the stone.

What was to happen in the afternoon got bumped to 2:00am. Early this morning Doug had the stone removed plus 2 others that were still in the kidney. They couldn't grab the other two stones that were in there because they were too small. Doug has the gift of passing two more stones at some point but because of the size the pain should not be as bad and the doctor thinks they will only take an hour to pass.

I have clearly decided I don't like hospitals. I was looking at the IV and a flood of memories came back. Gideon was in so much pain and constantly had an IV hooked up. My son suffered deeply and I couldn't do anything for him. Tears streamed down my face as I turned away from Doug. I didn't want him to have the added stress. He needed to focus. I tried to control it but the pain was there and I couldn't' push it down. It was all the same, here I was again. Some feelings came up that I knew would surface one day but had not dealt with yet. I still could not feel and let go because Doug needed me.

Many times while in the hospital Doug and I asked what can we learn from this? We had a few ideas but nothings real concrete. I now know what I can learn. I can deal with new emotions regarding Gideon's passing. Another level of healing. I remember having the thought that even though this was hard I would still reach out to a child that would cause me to sit in the chair next to a hospital bed with pain in my soul for their suffering and my possible loss. Peace flooded over me and I knew that in those moments God is even stronger in my life and will sustain me and make me more like him. That all loss is made up for and my children that pass while young will be mine to raise when the Lord returns. They are mine. A gift from a loving, kind Father in Heaven.

Now instead of helping Doug heal from hernia surgery this weekend I will need to take some time to grieve for my son. Surgery was put off and will be rescheduled for August or September. Because we will now hit our insurance deductible Creed and I will get our hernia's fixed and I will have my nose fixed. I can't wait to breath clearly and rub my nose when it itches without causing pain. One big blessing from Doug's kidney stone.