The REAL Nightmare Before Christmas

OK, so it appears I was a bit premature with my lost post. Having my flight canceled due to the snow storm turned out to be a blessing. Yesterday afternoon I was getting ready to head to a hockey game. I was actually pretty excited since it had been sooo long since I was last at a game. All of a sudden, out of no where I get this sharp pain in my lower back on the left side. I had no idea what had caused it.. all I knew was that the pain was getting worse by second. I was literally buckled over in acute pain. The best way to describe it is that it felt as if someone had stabbed me with a jagged knife and was twisting it around inside of me. The next thing I knew I was getting sick. It was at the point that I knew something was wrong. I called my parents and told them what was going on. We decided to monitor it for a little bit and see how I was feeling. I knew something was REALLY wrong when I peed blood (sorry if that is TMI). I started crying and was scared out of mind. I called my parents and decided I needed to go to the hospital. My friend Tamara came to pick me up and off we went. The entire car ride I was telling her that I did not want to wear hospital gown nor did I want to spend the night!!

I won't bore you with all of the details of my stay in the hospital but I will share these tid bits with you:

--Tamara and I entered the ER from the back which is NOT the way to go in. We got to see all of the behind the scenes including trauma and people on their death beds. Not the way you should enter an ER!!

--I got to wear a hospital gown OVER my clothes. Not sure why they made me do this but I was A-OK with that!

--I got to cruise around the joint while in my hospital bed

--EVERYONE told me that passing kidney stones would be the most painful experience EVER. Seriously, I did not need to hear that 1,000,000,000,000,000,000+ times. Seriously!

--When I had my CT Scan the lab tech told me that without moving I had to take my bra off because of the underwire. Umm... how am I to take it off without moving?!?

There is so much more I could tell you but I wont subject you to all of the fun details. In the end I was diagnosed as having two kidney stones. I think I passed the one last night and the other is still hanging out in my kidney. It was by far the WORST pain I have ever experienced and I hope I never have to experience it again. And I shudder to think what it must feel like if my stones were larger -- mine are/were 1-2mm. That's basically the size of a grain of sand. I am just praying that I did in fact pass it last night and that I am in the clear!!

On another note, I am scheduled to fly home late tomorrow night (only available flight before Christmas and I got the 2nd to last seat!). The Cape has about 18" and counting and Rob & Margaux got just shy of two feet!! Fingers crossed I can make it home tomorrow.. and that I don't experience any kidney stone attacks on my trip!