Not Quite

I spoke too soon.

Monday morning came and went as usual. Michael kissed me and left for work. Then around 8:30 I got a call from his office. He had arrived very ill and had been transported to North Fulton Hospital by ambulance. I went straight away to meet him there (remember the WAR ZONE ??). And so we spent the day in chaos with gurneys, tests, emisis basins, pain shots, iv's, tubes, ambulances, and the rest. Turns out he has STONES. Yes, thats right, not A STONE, but 3 STONES.

He has one STONE in particular that dislodged from his kidney and was painfully weaving it's way down towards his bladder and causing all kinds of havoc. After confirming this with a CT scan, the doctors started giving him lots of pain meds and nausea meds through an IV. Then they put him on NPO after midnight, thinking they might have to do a 'procedure' on Tuesday.

They were right. On Tuesday, Dr.Banks inserted a 'stint'. It's some contraption that extends from the kidney down to the bladder and acts sort of like a slide for the stone. The stone was pushed back up into the kidney by the procedure, but when it decides to start its way back down, the stint is supposed to aid it on its journey. But they also talked about using a laser and blasting the STONES up in the kidneys in a couple of weeks -after the infection clears.

Thats right, the infection. Seems once the doc got into the procedure he could see that an abcess or infection or some other God awful thing has developed in there. So Michael will have to go through a stiff round of antibiotics before any 'next' steps.
Oh yea, and the STONES - there are actually THREE of them. TWO in the kidney and one in the Gall Bladdder. The doctor said only one of them is acting up right now; the other two could act up in the future, or could just lie dormant forever, we just don't know.

Well, Michael is still at North Fulton, and the rest of us are at home. Just when we thought we had paid our ER dues for the month....... thats what I get for thinking.

We are all very grateful that even though Michael has suffered greatly these last 24 hours, he has a treatable condition and we know he'll be coming home safe and sound. And we are all so grateful for my parents who propped us up and kept us (me) going through another bump in the road. I love you mom and dad. And thank you too for the kind employees at DEC that got him to the hospital so swiftly and safely.