Emergency

My wife woke up in extreme pain this morning, around 1 am. It was enough pain that she was doubled over, moaning loudly, and in quite a bit of agony. We immediately diagnosed it as a kidney stone, given her symptoms. With an ice storm raging outside, we didn't have a choice but to drive to the emergency room. I woke our 11 year old daughter to tell her that we were going to the hospital, and that we'd be back as soon as we could.

After a 3 hour visit to the ER, a CT scan confirmed that she has a 1mm kidney stone. While that's not huge, it was enough to cause the severe pain. The doctors gave her some pain medicine, and said hopefully it will pass within 24 hours. It was currently lodged in the valve between the kidney and the bladder and that was causing the pain.

Actually, the roads weren't that bad, surprisingly. The road crews had been out all evening treating them, and with the traction control on our car, we had no problems.

It sure has been an expensive week medically for us. A root canal, LASIK eye surgery, and now a trip to the ER for a kidney stone. Let's see, that's about $7500 so far. A few more bucks and we could actually deduct our medical expenses this year on our taxes. Ha.

It's amazing that these things always come at the most undesirable time. Like my tooth ache last weekend, and now my wife's kidney stone in the middle of the night during an ice storm. Sure wish we could time these things better, so they don't fall over the weekend, and not all at once. Spreading them out over the course of year would also help, rather than in a span of 8 days. Wow.