The Summer of the Kidney Stone

Image - dinodaloo.blogspot.com

Kidney stones kind of took over my summer, and admittedly the 2nd part of the saga was partly my own fault.

I've already written the beginning of the story in a couple of other post. The pain started when I was at Camp Thanks a Lot with Emily and then I ended up in the ER right before our Michigan trip.

When I was in the ER, they told me there was another stone just hanging out. I kind of forgot about it after the whirlwind Michigan trip, though I did go off soda and started drinking a lot of water and lemonade. I had read that sometimes lemonade can cause stones to reduce in size.

I made it about a month and a half before stone number #2 started its' journey. I had been working and all of a sudden, I had intense pain in my side again. I still had medicine from the ER, so I got logged out of work and took the medicine.

It didn't stay down, so I tried again, and again, I was unable to keep it down. It was a Saturday and Todd and Emily had been out shopping. Once they got home, we were off to the ER again. And it was the 2nd stone - they gave me medicine and another prescription and sent me home to call a urologist on Monday.

This stone was different and the pain didn't go away. I started a cycle of pain, take medicine, go to sleep once the pain was a little less, then wake up and start it again. It was wretched. I got an appointment for Tuesday, and the urologist gave me some options. The main option was to have a procedure done that would break up the stone so I could pass it, but the machine that did that was only available on Mondays.

So home I went again to go through the pain cycle. And it was only a day or two after that I got a call from the office that the break up procedure wasn't an option and I would have to have surgery to get the mega awful stone out. And I'd have to have a stent in for a couple of days.

While I was pretty upset by this news, I was also really ready to not be in horrible pain anymore. Thankfully, as the week went on, the stone moved some so the pain was much more bearable. Todd took the day off and he and Emily went with me to the hospital to have surgery. Surgery went fine, though I really hated the stent. Totally annoying and by the end, it was painful.

Also surgery took place a week and a half before Dragon Con. We still went to the con, and I'll get into how this effected my con when I write my recap posts.

Todd and Emily were great while I was dying of kidney stones. And they even got me a bear - they gave it to me after I woke up from surgery.

As of now, I'm trying to be as proactive as possible. My urologist is having me do some tests to figure out how to avoid the formation of stones in the future. My stone was strangely formed and chances are I'll have to go on medicine and cut down on my salt intake.

I'll do it, even though I love salt. I don't want to go through that again. Kidney stones are more painful than childbirth!

Goals For 2017

Image: colemanmediacenter.org

I don't do resolutions, I do goals. My goals last year were to get healthier (check!) and write more (kind of check).

For this year, it's more of the same. My main goal is to get a finished draft on my first novel so I can start figuring out querying to get an agent or if I want to self publish. All that good stuff on the road to becoming a published author.

Working on my health is an ongoing thing. I kind of fell off the exercising wagon at the end of the year. Once we got back from Disney World, things got so busy! So I need to go back to the gym more again.

Other than that, I also hope to have some new costumes for the cons I'll be going to this year. Tina from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Princess Leia (white dress and buns) and Anna from Frozen are all on my list.

Beyond that, I'm hoping that 2017 will be kinder than 2016!

Mourning Memories Lost

A lost memory

As I've talked about before, I was very sick last November. I lost five days and woke up in the hospital the day before Thanksgiving in the ICU after having a series of seizures. Those five days are completely gone, though I'm not missing much - according to my husband, I mostly slept.

My brain is weird. That's pretty much the only diagnosis I've ever gotten. This is the 2nd time I've lost time, but this case was different. For a while, I didn't remember much of everything from last year. A lot of those memories did come back, but I knew the closer we got to November, I would get to a dead zone where I didn't remember much.

Memories are very important to me, probably in part because my mom is passed away and I don't have a ton of pictures of her. She is suppose to live on in my memory and she does - thankfully my long term memory was not affected.

For a while after I got home from the hospital, it seemed like every day I was finding something that I had forgotten. I was so excited to watch the movie Divergent again because I did remember that I had loved it in the theater, but when I started the movie I didn't remember any of it.

It's been months since I've experienced finding out something I forgot until last week. I saw on Facebook that one of my online friends had passed away, and thanks to the Timehop app a few days after that, I saw that I did know that he had died, but I had forgot.

We weren't close friends. Mostly online friends who met a few times at local Browncoat events but I felt extremely guilty that I had completely forgotten that he was gone. It's silly I know, but that's how I felt.

It also means that I'm in the dead zone now. From now until the day before Thanksgiving, my memories of last year are fuzzy at best. And a lot happened in October of last year that I wish that I could remember.

The only thing I can really remember about Emily's birthday is running to the dollar store near our house, but I don't remember why. The only things I remember from the Browncoat Ball is playing Cards Against Humanity with lots of people including Mikey Mason and then feeling sick to my stomach during the dance itself. Halloween I don't remember anything.

Because I had gone through the memory merry-go-round earlier, I didn't think it would be a big deal when I got to this point. But I realize now, that I'm still mourning for the lost memories. Thankfully I'm a big fan of social media and taking lots of pictures, so I've pieced together some of what happened. But I just don't remember it.

I'm sure I'll get over it, but the next few months may be harder than I anticipated. The healing just continues. I'm going to try and focus on making new memories as well.

Rest in Peace Aunt Dorothy

Aunt Dorothy and my cousin Boomer at my wedding

When I was very small, my dad's mom passed away from cancer. So while I only had one grandmother, I had two great aunts on my dad's who filled the grandma gap. Yesterday, I got the message that my Great Aunt Dorothy had passed away.

It's hard to talk about Aunt Dorothy without mentioning her sister Jackie. They were a pair throughout my childhood. When I was pretty young, we moved across the state because of a job my dad had gotten. When we would go back to Bay City, we would often stay with my Aunt Jackie. Even if we didn't stay there, we'd see both of them, usually at Jackie's house.

I do remember being at Aunt Dorothy's house - it was really cute and she actually had a rotary phone in her kitchen. I remember being very young and actually staying at her house one afternoon. I remember being put down for a nap, but not wanting to sleep. Just wanting to look around the room.

Aunt Dorothy was always happy, always smiling despite the hand life had dealt her. Her first husband died very young, leaving her and her small kids. Her second husband was abusive, but she was strong and stood up against him, leaving him. 

For many years, she's had a lot of health issues. I want to be like her when I grow up - happy despite the health issues. She also could do the splits all the way down even into her 80's which is a feat I couldn't do even when I was a teenager.

I feel very happy that I got to talk to her one last time on Easter. She sounds the same has she's done my entire life and she sounded like she was happy. I'll miss her, my dear Aunt Dorothy, but I'll cherish the memories I have - like of her dancing at my wedding.