Rosie woke up at 3am last night with leg cramp. After a good leg massage and a pain killer she was fine, but the head scratching thing set me picking over her head like a momma monkey. Lice. Hate.them! It’s been 3 years since we’ve been plagued by the little buggers but Rosie’s heed was hoachin’ (Hoaching = covered by a mass of living things, infested). I treated it then and there… and then spent 3 hours treating the other kids this afternoon (bugs present on heads or not) and striping beds etc. Heidi’s head was clear but if they make it into her mass of hair I will spend the best part of every evening for the next month trying to get them out again. I just don’t have the time or emotional wherewithal for that right now!!
Wednesday morning Len woke up with sever abdominal/side/back pain. By lunch time, we decided it was possibly more than a dodgy curry, and we made a trip into A&E that was reminiscent of a trip I took with my father when I was a child between Bartlesville and Tulsa. One that had Dad getting out of the car to vomit and roll around in field due to pain… before Len and I reached the ER, I had diagnosed kidney stones. I was right. You know, I am sure I missed a very lucrative career in medicine.
Between Wednesday last week and tonight, I have lost track of numerous trips back and forth to the hospital. He is still offically admitted to ward 7, but as long as the pain is manageble, they are letting him stay at home except for a daily check-up/ x-ray/blood test. At the moment, he has a 7 x4 mm stone lodged in his ureters (A long, thin tube that connects the renal pelvis of the kidneys to the bladder. Urine (and Lens stone) made by the kidneys travels through the ureters to the bladder.) and a ‘negligable’ sized stone in his kidney.
After tomorrow morning’s x-ray, they will decide if and when action will be take. They will either be sticking a shunt up to widen the 3mm opening to let it pass from his ureters (use your imagination of how they get the shunt in!!) or they go in (use you imagination again) and fish it out with a coat hanger and a chewed piece of gum or (if it looks like it is on the move) they will try and let it pass on it’s own. The ‘shunt’ option probably won’t be happening because he is due to be traveling back to Belgium with in the next 2 weeks and they don’t want him to fly with it in… We should know better by tomorrow.
His humour doesn’t seem to be comepletely lodged in his ureters along with the stone… but I am beginning to wonder if mine is stuck in there somewhere!
Meanwhile, I have a mini back-log on my desk of photo shoots that need processed… a nice little problem to have! Heidi, Daniel and Rosie return to school on Thrusday and until then, I don’t see me getting anything done durning the day. I slept tonight from 9pm until 2:45 am and am now working some sort of back shift (oh blessed quiet house!!) to meet a few studio deadlines. I have 3.5 hours now before I need to get Len up to get him to the hospital.
Yeah, kidney stones suck.
As these next few posts are catch-up posts… Apart from the present kidney stones, the odd asthma attack caused by seasonal alergies (me), a chest infection and pulled muscle last month (Len) we are all in great health. Rosie has lost 2 teeth now (for which she has recieved a shocking amount of money!!) - Hannah has morphed from a child into this beautiful bud of a young woman - growing at least 2 sizes in 3 months. Heidi growing up scarily fast too and displaying some very mature and responsible traits over the last few days, seeing me stressed, she really stepped up to the plate to help me out. And Daniel… well, still the sweetest boy ever.
