The Saga of the Stone(s....)

And we all thought i was gonna have that baby early.

Pshhh!

Turns out, those were not contractions.  No, my friends, those were KIDNEY STONES.  8 mm in diameter and three of them "lodged in my ureter" because they had been there for so long. 

Last July, I had some seriously serious pain in my right side.  I was six months pregnant, and after an ultrasound of my kidneys that revealed nothing, i was diagnosed with pre-term labor and put on strict bed rest.  3 months of doing nothing but laying in bed, getting up only to shower and sit on the toilet....and occasionally brush my teeth.  What??  it's not like i was going anywhere.

Bedrest did the trick.  The pain went away, and that baby did not come early.  Not even after i hiked a mountain 40 weeks pregnant.  Nope.  She wan't budging.  I must have an awesome womb. :)  So when Lorelei arrived late, i wondered if maybe i'd rested in my bed a little too much.  I mean, not only was she late, but she wouldn't even come out when the contractions were pushing her.  The doctor had to go in and take her...via C-section.  The great part about a C-section is the delivery. I didn't feel a thing.  The not so great part about a C-section is the recovery.  I felt something then.  OUCH.

So....four months pass, and i am surprised by the EXACT SAME PAIN i had when i was pregnant.  What is this???  I can't be having contractions now!!!  I'm not pregnant!!  Why is this pain back???  And it was back with a vengeance.  It sent me all the way to the ER where, after some tests, the doctor said something to me i'll never forget:

"You are as full of feces as a human being can be.  In fact, the radiologist even made a note of it."  

Great.  I'm full of poop.  And the radiologist knows too.  Before long the whole hospital will be talking about that poop-loaded patient in room 6.  Not exactly what i had in mind when i was little and dreaming of being famous.

So the doc sends me home with a bottle of nasty stuff for me to drink.  This "stuff" will cause my bowels to completely empty and i will be pain free.  Hah.  Only half of that statement was true.  The bowels, they did empty (not fun).  But guess what happened one month later???

PAIN.  In my right side.  What time is it???  4 am.  Maybe i'm just imagining things...maybe if ignore it, it will go away.  Riiiiiiiight.  An hour later i'm writhing and extremely frustrated with the whole scenario.  Seriously???  I'm not having contractions, and there's no way i can be full of poop AGAIN!  i had been taking the proper procedures to prevent that, and things were running smoothly (no pun intended).

I decided to take the meds the doc had prescribed just in case i might have future pains.  BAD IDEA.  Now, not only was i experiencing intense and unrelenting pain; i was completely nauseated.  I felt that i would be tossing my cookies any minute.

What to do, what to do?  I have a husband at work and a baby who will be waking up hungry, and there's no way i can hold her, much less nurse her, in my current condition.

Call mom. 

Thank God for parents....for wonderful, loving, caring, helpful parents living close by.  My mom came up, saw the condition i was in, fed the baby a bottle, and drove the 3 of us to the doctor's office.  My dad met us there.  From the doctor's office to the ER, to the CT scan, and to the bed where i lay in agony until that blessed nurse finally pumped me full of morphine.

I had my knees pulled up to my chest and was rocking back and forth in pain, but when that morphine hit me, my whole body relaxed.  Finally.  No pain.  That's all i wanted.  Just for someone to make that pain go away before i went crazy.  And i was on the verge....of losing it.  Ceaseless pain for 7 straight hours makes you want to scream and throw things.  But of course, i knew that wouldn't help, and so i didn't.  I just cried.  A lot.

And the result of that CT scan?  KIDNEY STONES.  Not contractions, not poop, but kidney stones.  Nasty little bugers.  For the record let me just say it,  I HAVE BEEN IN LABOR AND I HAVE ENDURED KIDNEY STONES.  THE STONES ARE WORSE.

So from the ER we journeyed to the Urologist, and finally to the hospital where i spent the night hooked to an IV and a morphine drip.  Best sleep i've had in a LOOOOONNGG time.  The next morning, they briefed me, and then sent me back for surgery.  I told my mom and my husband goodbye, and was rolled away for the procedure.

Having never been put to sleep before, i was a little nervous.  However, that sleep now trumps the previously stated sleep as the best sleep of my life.  I woke up feeling refreshed, and was immediately offered a Dr. Pepper by the nurse...I could get used to that!  I drank TWO of them ( i was thirsty and my throat hurt from that breathing tube someone had carelessly SCRAPED up and down my throat).

But back to the operating room.  I remember laying there (or is it lying?), and telling them about my nerves.  The nurse covered me with a warm blanket, and the anesthesiologist told me he was giving me something to help me relax.  If by relax he meant "pass out completely and remember nothing," then he sure did his job well.  All i remember is holding on to that warm blanket and being moved from my bed to the operating table....and a faint vision of an oxygen mask being placed over me.  While i was sleeping peacefully, the doctor went in with a scope and a laser.  He blasted those 8 mm pain inflictors and removed them from my body.  I'm still amazed that he lasered the stones and only the stones.  It's not like he had a large space to work in.  Ureters aren't exactly large and roomy.  Modern medicine baffles me.  In a good way.

It was about an hour before i was awakened and happily sipping that Dr. Pepper and thinking about all the good sleep i'd gotten since i'd been at the hospital.  After making sure i was recovering well, and not acting funny or having any other problems, i was sent home with a plastic cup holding a small sample of one of my stones.  The Urologist will send it away to be tested to see if there might be a clue as to what caused the stones in my kidney.

But if you ask me, i'll tell you i'm 100% sure it was pregnancy induced.  I don't believe i was having preterm labor.  I had kidney stones.  The poop thing...who knows?  Maybe i was backed up, but i don't believe poop causes THAT kind of pain.  It was the kidney stones, and AT LAST i am free of them.   
 
 

Bikini: the other bad word

the first time i wore a two-piece bathing suit was right after my highschool graduation.

i'm not even sure you could really classify it as a two-piece.  the bottom half was boy shorts and the top half was like a tank top (this was before someone coined the term:  tankini).  they met in the middle so that really not much skin showed at all.  in fact, it was probably more modest than most one-pieces.  it was bright blue with a snake skin pattern, and i was so proud of that bathing suit. 

FINALLY, i didn't have to wear a boring, old and motherly looking, embarrasing one piece.  i bought it with my own money, and packed it in my bag going with me to the beach for our senoir class trip.  i could not wait to wear that bathing suit.  for me, that was more exciting than turning 18 and being able to vote...or getting my driver's license (which i also did not do until i was 18). 

emphasis on BIG DEAL here.

my whole life, i'd gone to schools, and camps, and pools in friends back yards with a mandate stating THOU SHALT NOT WEAR A TWO-PIECE BATHING SUIT!  i mean, if you were caught wearing one of THOSE at some of these places, you would immediately be sent home to change while everyone else discussed the earth-shattering effects of your bad judgement and the seriousness of your relationship with Christ...and possibly held an emergency prayer meeting pleading with God to forgive your Sinful Swimwear Selection (and yet somehow i ended up in an organization in college with the same mandate about the B-word.  did that stop me from wearing mine a little further down the beach from everyone else?  no it did not.).

back to my story.  i'm pretty sure i dreamed about wearing my brand new BIKINI (which wasn't even close to the real thing) several nights in a row before actually leaving for the beach trip.  when we finally rolled up to the beach house we were staying at and got everything settled, what do you think i did?  if your answer is that i immediately put on my two-piece and proudly strolled down the walkway to the beach where i sat my two-piece clad self on my towel in the sand triumphantly, you would be correct.  did the earth spin off of its axis for a split second? 

no. 

nothing happened...except that a tiny portion of my lilly white belly just may have peeked out and said hello to the sun for the first time in it's life.  followed by an earthquake off the coast of California.  and now i'm living in a halfway house and eating at soup kitchens.

Kidding.

oh glorious day!  i wasn't asking for much.  just a chance to decide for myself what kind of swimwear i'd be sporting all summer long.  and wouldn't you know it?  that very night i met a boy and talked to him.  i give all the credit to my two-piece.  everyone knows wearing two-pieces leads to other "no-no's" like talking to boys...and EATING ICECREAM WITH THEM.  gasp!  i think there was even a go-cart involved.

needless to say, it was a harmlessly fun trip (even though one classmate made a point to drive herself to my house a few days after the trip and tell me what she thought of my two-piece and that i should fall on my face before the Lord and repent.  ok, yes, i'm exaggerating a bit here, but to her, that bathing suit meant i was heading down the path of destruction) and i was pretty pleased with myself for daring to try new things, ie bathing suits and talking to boys (is that a correct use of ie?  i'm not even sure i really know what that means.).  and, in case you're wondering, i do not fault my parents for my previous lack of swimwear selection.  did they want their daughter to look classy and not trashy?  of course, but even my dad the pastor and my mom the (not really one good title to insert here...what would you call yourself, mom?) "minister/counselor to women in need"  didn't ground me for life when i started wearing two-pieces.  in fact, i'm almost positve they purchased my next one, which was BRIGHT ORANGE.  not a good look with blindingly white skin....sigh.

and now?  well, as soon i post this i'm off to purchase Lorelei her very first bikini with a buttload of ruffles on the bottom!!  actually, i don't care how many pieces there are to her swimsuit.  i just want something completely adorable with the previously mentioned buttload of ruffles.  this is the only time it is ok for a swimsuit to make your butt look bigger, and all those ruffles will most certainly do the trick!

and just to set my old classmate's mind at ease:  i have turned from my wicked ways.  this summer i will be in a one-piece.  you can stop praying for me.

until next summer...or until you discover that i tune in and enjoy watching The Ellen Show.

stick that on your bumper!

It never fails.

Every time i get in the car and go somewhere, there's always a minivan (ok, it's not always a minivan, but 9 times out of 10 IT'S A MINIVAN) boldly displaying a bumper sticker broadcasting to the world how proud the driver of that minivan is of their child's brainpower.

For example: "Proud Parent of a Little River Elementary School Honor Role Student," "Proud Parent of an Accelerated Reader, " "Proud Parent of Albert Einstein."

Ok, so i haven't actually seen that last one, but the bumper sticker may as well say it. I mean, your kid gets a few "A"s on their report card, and BAM! Look out bumper, you're about to get stuck!!

Not that i'm downing being smart and making good grades. That's wonderful. I sincerely hope my daughter grows up to be an Honor Roll Student, Accelerated Reader, and all that other good stuff parents hope their kids will do. If she makes some "B"s, no problem. "B" does not stand for "bad grade." If she comes home with a "C" on her report card, well, i'll probably be a little disappointed, but it's not like her mother never made a "C" on her report card. A little subject called Math that turned into a more complicated subject called Algebra and went on to become an impossible subject called Physics was not my best friend.

But, i have NO PLANS to EVER slap a bumper sticker on my Swagger Wagon that loudly proclaims the brainpower of my child. Just not my thing.

HOWEVER....let's say the kid comes home from school one day with a note from the Principal saying something like:

Ms. Losier,
It has come to our attention that your daughter, a 5th grader at Such N Such Elementary School, is responsible for the food fight that disrupted our normally event-free lunch hour. As a result she will be serving a Double Detention in which she must scrub the bathroom floor baseboards with nothing but a toothbrush. Thank you for understanding.
Principal So N So

First of all, no child of mine will ever be made to scrub any public bathroom baseboards as a form of punishment. If that's an issue, we'll promptly find a new school.

Second things second, since i've had my own fair share of Double Detentions (mostly for dress code violations or standing up on the bus or, let's say, being "disrespectful" to the Principal's grandson who was my substitute Spanish Teacher and all of two years older than me...normal things you would expect to receive a Double Detention for), how upset can i really be at my own child receiving a Double Detention??

Thirdly, HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BUMPER STICKER BE??? Smack dab in the center of the ol' Swagger Wagon, this is what it would say:

"Proud Parent of the Kid Who Started the Food Fight at Such N Such Elementary School"


Your kid may be a brainiac, but MY KID throws a hamburger like Drew Brees throws a football.

Who are you again?

So a little time has passed since my last blog. Just a little. A smidgen. You probably didn't even notice i was missing. I stepped out, and then i got distracted, and then i found a rabbit trail and decided to hop down it. One thing led to another, and before i knew what was happening, my short vacation turned into a really long holiday. But there was room service, and turn-down service, and a sauna, and chocolates on my pillow, and i mean, come on....can you blame me??? there was chocolate. ON MY PILLOW. Waiting for me to eat it. And nap. But...here i am. Back to reality, and back to my blog :)

Honestly, i have no clue where to begin. So much has happened.

I met someone.
We got married.
We got pregnant.
He found a new job.
I lost my job.
We had a wedding.
We had our baby.
I found a new job.
We moved 5 zillion times (slight exaggeration).

That's putting the long story reealllllly short (like having hair down to your butt, and then going for a buzz-cut). All of these things deserve their own spot in this blog. Something i plan on getting to...when that rabbit trail quits calling my name.

That being said, you can quit holding your breath. I have, indeed, decided to start writing again.

Here's a thought...

My school finally started a sports program when i was in middle school, 8th grade to be exact. We we were told to vote on school colors for the teams, and we did. I'm sure we all thought the colors we ended up with were the colors we voted on, but i had a revelation the other day.
The colors - powder blue, white, and silver - were all in our Principals Color-Me-Beautiful color pallet. There's no way she would have been caught dead in a brown, cream, and gold sweatshirt bearing the school's name. Her color season was Winter, and Winters would never wear those colors. Talk about looking faded and washed out. Horror of all horrors!
Anybody go through that ridiculous fashion trend? The good ol color swatch sampler...it was bright yellow and just the right size for a ladies purse. When you opened it up and unfolded it, all the color swatches were displayed, and it looked like a paint or carpet sampler. The company actually had women who were paid to throw bolts of colored fabric over you so that only your face showed, and then depending on whether the color made your eyes "pop" or your skin look "faded" you were told whether or not you should wear that color. Very scientific.
You could be labeled as one of four seasons: Winter, Spring, Autumn, or Summer. Each of those seasons had sub-categories. I believe i was a Soft Autumn. What did this mean? I have no clue, except that under no circumstances whatsoever was i ever to wear Black, White, Silver, or Fuchsia. These were bad colors for me. They would wash me out and make me look like a sick and dying cat. Fabulous. Instead of white, i wore off-white. Instead of black, i wore brown. Gold jewelry only. If i wore red, it had to be orange-red, not purple-red. I can remember shopping with my mom or other ladies from the school and spending 15 minutes with a shirt and a color swatch trying to determine if it was in their accepted range of color. Sheesh!! Who cares if it's a kelly green or a hunter green?! Do you like it? Do you feel good in it? Does it match the pants in your hand? Does it go with your favorite lipstick? Then get it!! Tell Color-Me-Beautiful to get over it!
So of course, as soon as i went off to college, i started wearing lots of black, white and pink things, and only silver jewelry. And i looked pretty dern good in all of it, if i do say so myself. No one forced me to follow the color pallet rule while in middle and high school, and my mom really didn't care at all. But it was highly annoying to go to school in something you really liked only to be told by someone who thought that pantyhose, pumps and patriotic scarves were fashionable, "hmmm, i'm not so sure that's a good color for you."
And now? Now i thank God every day that there are other stores besides JCPenny and Sears where i can freely shop and choose things that Color-Me-Beautiful would have no clue what to do with, haha!
Ok, so that's a slight exaggeration. But, i do think i'll go see if i can find my mom's old book of color swatches...the fireplace needs some starter materials for the winter. :)

flying minus the trapeze

When my brother and i were little, we had the world's most fabulous tire swing. The tire was HUGE, and the tree we hung it from was ginormous. Some Bethel Guys (guys my dad worked with) helped us hang the swing by throwing a brick tied to a rope over the lowest branch of the tree (which wasn't very low). The tree was actually more in the woods than in our yard, and my dad used his machete to clear out all the weeds and bushes and poison ivy, etc. that was in the way of a clear swinging path.
I spent many a blissful afternoon on that swing, my brother and i singing songs at the top of our lungs: "On top of old SMOKEYYYYYYYY!!!" But, we had the most fun when my dad would come out with us and push us. He could push that swing so high, we could see over the roof of our house. I remember holding on tightly and straining my neck to look until we finally reached the ultimate height, and i could see the cows in the pasture on the other side of our house.

I think i was 2 the day i fell off the swing.

I was never scared of heights as a kid. In fact, i was the only one in my family who would ride roller coasters at theme parks for quite a while. My mom would find a nice looking family and ask if i could ride with them, while she, my dad, and my brother would stand below the ride and watch me fly by, upside down and loopty-looping. All that to say, at 2, i was not scared to be pushed as high as the roof line of our house while swinging on the tire swing.

So there we were, my brother and i. My dad was pushing away. I'm sure we were laughing, and possibly singing, and straining to see who could look over the roof of the house first. One minute, i was flying through the air as high as i could go on that big, black, rubber tire, and the next minute i continued flying through the air, but without the tire. Just me and the breeze and the long fall to the ground below. I still remember it. I didn't have time to realize what had happened until it was over. Somehow, i lost my grip on the tire's ropes, and i slipped off mid-swing. The amazing part is, instead of hitting the ground, i hit the safety of my dad's arms. He caught me! It all happened so fast, but no one was hurt, and it was more like being tossed into my dad's arms rather than falling off the swing.

I spent many years after that loving and enjoying that tire swing, but every time i got on, i always thought about the time i almost fell to the ground but didn't...

Zzzzap!

So, i'm convinced being pregnant has zapped all the creativity from my body. I sit and stare at the screen trying to write, but no words come out. All i can think about is how badly i want some watermelon, and how much i regret eating that many chips and salsa at lunch. Talk about heartburn.
The good news is, i'm still smart! Over Easter, we played some family games, and i won all of them. Feels good to be a winner. Not that i'm saying one should gloat, but when one has a brother who's genius can be compared with that of Einstein and who's mother is equally brilliant...it's nice to occasionally come out on top :)

and, i'm out.