A new baby on deck, gall stones up to bat...

This is very confusing for me...because I had in mind that carrying another entire person inside myself and dealing with all the icky and painful stuff that can go along with that was enough. However, this whole gall bladder stone thing is adding huge insult to injury and I can't help but think along the lines of my son when he doesn't get his way and say, "This isn't fair!!"



I had an attack two weeks in a row, both on a Thursday. The first one was more frustrating than anything else because it started at 2am and forced us to wake the kids up at 4am, pack them in the car, drive to the hospital where my mom met us, transfer them to her car so she could bring them back home and then check into triage at the Women's Pavilion at Providence in Everett. The frustrating thing was that as soon as we pulled into the parking lot, the pain stopped. I couldn't believe it. All that for an attack that lasted 2 hours and I still had to go in and be monitored to make sure the baby was okay and that I wasn't having contractions. Brad missed a day of work and the kids' whole schedule was messed up for a week.



So the next Thursday when I felt the attack coming on, I was skeptical about trying to go in. This time though, it came on hard really fast. It was about 5:45pm, I had just gotten home from picking Loren up at a friend's house and knew immediately what was happening. (Last time it was painful in different places but found out later it was because of how displaced everything is because of the baby.) Within about a half an hour I was in really bad pain. So we took the kids to our awesome friend/neighbor's house and headed to the hospital again, this time to the ER instead of triage @ the women's place. The car ride was miserable...this was the worst attack ever out of the 7 others I have had. I have never experienced this amount of pain ever in my entire life. I waited in the ER lobby for about an hour surrounded by mostly moms with kids who were sick or hurt. I was trying so hard to be quiet and not sob and I think I did a good job. I was expecting for it to start to get better and hanging on to that hope. After talking with the triage nurse, who was really nice and explained how things worked to Brad as far as getting us in, I only had to wait a few more minutes before being taken to a room. They gave me the room in the very back all my myself, which was good, because the pain got worse from there.



I just want to make an attempt to explain the pain, but I don't think I can. I have nothing to compare it to except labor, but the only time I was actually in labor was 6 years ago and my first attack ever was worse than that, so this could be described as exponentially worse than labor pain. As far as comparing it to broken bones or getting shot or something, I've never had anything like that happen to me.



I was crying out in pain, sobbing and begging for it to stop. I kept telling Brad "I can't do this, I can't do this anymore!" I remember thinking I was going to pass out. I was delirious from pain. I took another hour for the ER people to get my blood, place an IV and order drugs. That last hour was torture. It didn't get better, it got worse. I couldn't even pray, I kept thinking I needed to tell Brad to pray for me but I couldn't hold on to that thought enough to vocalize it. It was like my access to my own spirit was hindered. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone, but there it is.



The nurses were so great, one of them was an older lady, older but hip, you know with cool short spiky hair and stuff. She got a wash cloth and wiped my tears and told me I could make it through, it would be over soon. I'll never forget her. The other one was probably my age and she was calm in the storm. She tried to get the IV in my right arm but it didn't work, so she switched to my left and got it in...but the whole time I'm agonizing, moaning and crying and she just concentrated on what she had to do so she could get me my meds quickly. She quietly told me she was sorry, the whole, I know, I know kind of talk, calm but not sickly sweet or fake. I had hoped that the amount of pain I was in would make the IV feel like nothing, but I think when you're in that state all your nerves are on fire, because the IV was still painful and I was suddenly worried that the nurse with the washcloth on my face would catch it on my nose ring and pull it out, which hurts like a son of a gun.



The doctor was nice, a kind of hippie looking dude, again a calm presence yet he wanted to make darn sure that I was sure I was having a gall stone and not having a baby in his ER. Both Brad and I assured him that we were POSITIVE of what it was. He was happy to have a patient that wasn't at all wishy washy about what was happening to her.



The nurse finally came back in and placed about 5 syringes full of meds at the end of my bed. Anti-vomiting med (although I had already thrown up in a nifty little transportable clear vomit bag...nothing like throwing up and having to look at it and hold it in your lap...) an acid reducer, something else I can't remember, and the ultimate, the pain med. I can't remember what it's called...duadanem or something weird, but it works as fast as she puts in in the IV. Last time it knocked almost all the pain out, but this time it took another hour for the pain to go all the way away. But the relief was almost ethereal. To be able to breathe again, to be able to relax my body finally after 3 hours of terrible pain...it was the true, TRUE meaning of relief.



The doctor ordered another ultrasound of my gall bladder and unfortunately there was another 6mm stone that hadn't passed. The good news is that the gall bladder wasn't inflamed or otherwise sick looking, which meant that an emergency c-section in order to perform and emergency gall bladder-ectomy didn't have to take place. However, now I feel like I have a ticking time bomb floating inside me just waiting to give me another attack. Here is the bad news: 1. The meds for dissolving stones aren't safe during pregnancy.

2. It's not possible to move the c-section sooner to get me closer to having my gall bladder out.

3. I have to eat an extremely bland, low fat diet from now until I get the stinkin' thing out, which could be 2-3 months after I have the baby on 7/11/07. This means I still have to get 60 grams of protein a day without consuming very much fat....translate: skinless chicken, fat free milk, fat free yogurt and lots of Kashi cereal plus fruit and veggies. That's it. Really.



So after all of this drama, I have realized and reflected on a few things. One of them is that I am more amazed than ever at all the people who have been tortured for their faith and not recanted. Most people don't think about this, but Christians all over the world in places like North Korea, China, Iraq and Iran are currently in jail being tortured to deny their faith. There are also many great books that tell the stories of people in the past who have been put through agony in order to get them to stop believing in Jesus Christ and accept whatever belief their country held to, namely Communism. Take the time to find out more about this, whether you are a Christian or not, because human rights should be important to all of us. Here are a few links...



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3993857.stm

http://www.persecution.com/



I honestly don't know...If I had been in that amount of pain in some dark jail somewhere and they told me they would stop the pain if I just recanted my faith...it would be a lie of course, because freedom comes from Christ and not from someone saying you have it. I just don't know. I guess that's when the supernatural comes into play, the ability to endure things you didn't think you could because of the gift of faith and the Spirit inside us holding us up. It isn't from ourselves, not how strong or tough we are. Nonetheless, I have been pondering it all since experiencing such agonizing pain.



I also have been having slight panic attacks thinking about the possibility of going through that again. I cried for 2 days after just thinking about it. So I have had to really give it over to God and pray for faith, which is new for me because I usually am able to move on immediately and let it go right away.



I guess this experience has really caused me to reflect on some things I took for granted so much before. I was really in a spiritual rut and focused so much on other things. If God was trying to get my attention, well, he certainly has it now. I am committed now to praying for the persecuted and also have renewed energy to write letters to the soldier in Iraq that we 'adopted'. Again, whether or not you agree with the war, adopting a soldier is a great way to support the individual and not necessarily the cause. You just write letters and send a care package every month or so. The soldiers on the lists are ones without much family or support from home. You can just type 'adopt a soldier' into Google and a few sites come up you can sign up on. Focusing on individual people instead of causes or belief systems is so much easier because it makes it less about you and more about loving others.

So that's my story of the week. I'm still struggling with worry over having another attack, but with friend's and family's prayers I hope that will get better.

The baby will be here in eleven days!!! I've been nesting like crazy and it's wonderful...until I over do it and have to be told to take it easy. I'm so excited to meet Paige and it will be so cool to see Kaeleigh's reaction. She doesn't understand what' s going on, I've been telling her I have a baby in my tummy but I don't think that's something she can grasp really. She does seem to understand that a baby is coming from somewhere, because she's looking at all the stuff for Paige and saying, "Baby?" So that will be super fun, having her see the actual baby and learning that it's her sister. Loren is an out of sight, out of mind kind of fella, I think he'll be pretty enamoured by her when she's here, since he's older this time and has a better idea of the miracle that babies are. All in all, looking forward, forward all the time with hopes for safe delivery and fast recovery.