Well, Chris called in the Big Guns. My back was hurting so bad that she called Nathan and April and sicced them on me. They were convinced that it was kidney stones, so they put on their sternest, meanest voice and insisted that I take … A trip to the ER. WooHoo. We bundled our stuff up. Chris took the book she’s been reading. I took my crossword puzzle book and the book I have been reading. Side note here. She finished her book. I didn’t even crack mine open. Guess I was too excited about the little adventure …
April
was not working, but she called ahead and sort of reserved a room for me. No view but the staff was nothing short of
fabulous. Kaitlyn was my nurse. I have met her before. Very sweet girl. Kelly was on duty as charge nurse. Her husband is a fire fighter, so I knew her,
too. Between then they managed to put me
in a room where their hand-picked Doctor Moss would be sure to be the one
handling my care. I liked him, too. Especially when started just talking for a
bit. Here’s a tantalizing little snippet
of our conversation:
Doc:
“So April is your granddaughter, right?”
(Yep,
he really went there. Guess I was
looking particularly old. Or somebody
fed him slightly altered reconnaissance data).
Me:
“No, but I’ll sure claim her.”
Doc
(Kind of backtracking):“But they told
me you were related.”
Me:
“She’s my daughter-in-law. But as far as
I’m concerned, she’s my daughter.”
Doc:
“I’ve known April since she first started around here.”
(And
that was the end of the conversation. So
April, if nothing else, he knows who you are.
Is that a good thing?).
Back
to the adventure. They started an
IV. Gave me a tri-cocktail of: something
for pain, something for inflammation, and something for relaxing muscles. By the end of the stay they had given another
dose of the pain stuff. Oh, and they
took a picture of my kidneys with the CT machine. Now that was a really cool machine. Big old donut-looking thing that they roll
you through and it teleports you into another dimension beyond that of sight
and sound and into the Diagnosis Dimension.
My favorite part of that experience?
Just as I was heading into the machine gaping jaws, I glanced up and
noticed a small, nondescript, little light had flickered on. And what is so unusual about lights on a
teleportation machine? This one was a
picture of Pac-Man with his mouth gaping open.
Odd. A mysterious Voice from
beyond then said to me, “Take a deep breath.”
Not one to be overly rebellious, I complied. And just as I did, the first light flickered
off and the second one lit up. It was
Pac-Man again. But this time his lips
were pressed tightly together, his cheeks were all puckered out, and the Voice
returned, “Hold your breath. Do not
breathe.” By this time I was eager to
see what the next Pac-Man would be doing, but as I departed the machine and
returned to the dimension that is our reality, the first smiling Pac-Man
returned to say his farewells. It was
cute. Oh, and the tech guy doing the
test was named Zak. And he looked like
an older version of our grandson Zak.
Kind of eerie, with the Inter-dimensional travel going on and all. The whole thing took maybe three minutes and
I was headed back to the room. Oh, and
speaking of the room, I was very grateful that they allowed Chris to stay in
the room with me. I am just a big baby,
after all.
So
on to the final results. They sent me
home with two prescriptions and with orders to stay in bed and rest. Fortunately Kel said he would preach for me,
so there will still be a Kel Vaughan in the Seaside pulpit this morning.
All’s
well that ends well, right? Well … I’m
not done yet. Last night I took a
shower. And as I began to dry off, I had
one of the worst stabbing pains since this ordeal began. It felt like I was being ripped apart from
the inside out. It literally knocked me
to my knees. It took quite a while
before I was able to push up onto the toilet and slide on my clothes. It was pretty excruciating … nauseatingly
painful. Chris doled out my meds and I
pulled myself onto the couch. That’s
when I noticed that the area right above the offending stabbing pain has gone
completely numb. How’s that for a side
effect? Chris says we have to watch that
one. Nothing simple for me, that’s for
sure …
Romans
8:26 says, “In the same way, the Spirit
helps us in our weakness. We do not know
what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through
wordless groans.”
Father,
thank you for hearing my grunts and groans of prayer these last few days. Amen.
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