Well, I survived.
Honestly, that was my main fear going into this procedure, that I wasn’t going to come out of anesthesia. My main intake nurse was awesome! She had this nifty light box that shows all your veins! I don’t know why they don’t just use that every time they have to do IVs. Another nurse held the light box to show the veins and then my main nurse just slid the IV right in, easy peasy. I didn’t even bruise. I mean AT ALL. She was crazy good. Jesse sat with me for a couple hours until he had to go pick up Ezra from school and wouldn’t you know it, a couple minutes later is when we got started.
I met Dr. Gannon for the first time when he came in to introduce himself and to go over the procedure. I had met with the nurse practitioner the first time through but he had a good bedside manner and I felt comfortable with him. The anesthetist gave me a dose of something that I felt almost immediately and then we were rolling down the hall to the operating room. A day or two earlier I had watched a couple YouTube videos on laser lithotripsy and that was a mistake. It’s interesting to watch it happen to someone else but when you know it’s going to happen to you it’s a whole different matter. Basically they have you spread eagle and go in with a catheter, guide wires, and a camera and once they find the kidney stone they bring in a small laser and blast the hell out of it. I sat on the OR bed and got situated and the last thing I remember was placing my left arm into position. Then I was waking up.
As much as I’m grateful for coming out of anesthesia, I freaking hate the process. I feel like it lasts a long time in my system and I’m always nauseous and end up vomiting and just feeling all around icky. I was in the recovery room for a couple hours and then Jesse took me home. They left a stent in my ureter that needed to come out a week later and sent me home with a bunch of pills.
I took it easy the rest of the day and all the next day and aside from cramping throughout the week that followed, it wasn’t too bad. I had the stent removed one week later and that was a strange process. They took me back into this little procedure room and had me strip from the waist down and then they had to clean me. It’s a weird process in which everyone tacitly agrees to not mind that your downstairs parts are on display and being methodically handled. Dr. Gannon came in right after my bits had been smeared with lidocaine. I think I was more nervous for the stent retrieval than the more invasive procedure I’d had done earlier because I was completely awake and aware. But, he had me watch the camera scope on the screen and it was pretty interesting and not painful, just weird feeling, and then it was done. That stent was MUCH larger than I thought it would be!
I wasn’t surprised that I had been cramping after that. A day or two later and I’m feeling pretty much back to normal.
They said it was about 20% calcium and about 80% uric acid which comes from eating a lot of protein. Dr. Gannon said to just make sure I drink more water and to try to eat less red meat. I told him I could comply with the more water but eating less meat probably wasn’t going to happen. The thing is, without regular CT scans there is no way to know how long that stone had been building. It could have been a couple months, it could have been 10 years, there is just no way to know. So, I’ll just keep an eye out for any similar symptoms and go from there.
Leo had his 2nd birthday a few days ago. I always think about the day I gave birth to him (read parts 1, 2, and 3) and the trauma that followed after and I always get little panicky feelings, especially when I remember coming out of the ketamine and the crazy psychedelic hallucinations and the terrifying, smothering memory of being intubated and feeling like I was suffocating because I couldn’t take a full, deep breath. I try not to think about it too often but it’s there in the background.
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On a lighter note, we got new kittens! Two female kitties, Keiko and Lana. Keeks likes to be cuddled and pet more than Lana, Lana is a bit more flighty. They have already grown so much in the couple weeks we’ve had them. Here is a shot from when we first brought them home.
Benny is quite infatuated with them. They haven’t helped calm him down, really, but at least they will grow up getting mauled regularly by a dog so it won’t seem traumatic to them.
I watched Gone with the Wind the other day for the first time. It was more interesting than I thought it’d be but it’s not one I need to watch over and over again. That Scarlett was a real wench! Always thinking about her needs. I would have thought her character would have grown from the beginning of the film to the end but she pretty much stayed self-centered throughout the whole thing.
We are in the process of getting Ezra tested so he can skip kindergarten and go straight to first grade. He’s a little smartypants, is already reading pretty well, doing multiplication, all the things and more that he’d learn in K. It’s crazy how resistant his school has been in helping us get him tested. They wanted to just wait until K starts and then test him the first week and then maybe have him in half-day K and then half-day first grade. How the heck does that make any sense?! He’d be missing out on a whole half day of advanced information. At this point we’ve filled out the paperwork and are just waiting on hearing back for when they can schedule him to be tested. We want him to be tested for the Gifted program as well but because that starts in first grade we have to get the other testing done first. Endless looping.
We have our new windows scheduled to be installed this week and our deck should get replaced in maybe one or two weeks. It’s been somewhat rainy here so our deck guy’s other projects have been delayed so now our deck is delayed. We have settled on a new landscaping company and now we have to finalize the process with them and hopefully than can start in the next week or two, FINALLY.
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