More Medical Bullshit.

Ay yi yi where to begin.

I was on the phone Wednesday with my grandfather, trying to tell him of my latest medical mishap, but I kept getting interrupted.

"Amy, I need you to wipe my butt" Said Whitey, the recently potty trained. This is great, because that kid can crap like no other. Huge, monster poops that fill and overflow a diaper. Adult-sized crap out of a pint sized package. Since he now poops in the potty, I just have a one swipe cleanup, although it still smells worse than anything Super-G has put out.

I say three words to Grandpa then I get Bug screaming down the stairs...."mommy!!! I need wipies!!!" So up the stairs I go, she is sitting upon the throne, with a fresh roll of toilet paper at the ready, but ever since my mother-in-law introduced Huggies Clean to Bug, she cannot possibly wipe her ass with anything other than the softest, moistest of scatological cleansing supplies. However, being the mean mom that I am, I purchased a competing brand, the Kan-Doo wipes from Pampers, because they were on sale.

So I guess I can forgive her inability to see the full box of wipes sitting on the counter, directly north of the pristine yet unsatisfactory toilet paper, as the box is different. I get to the bathroom and ask "What, you need to pull it out for you?" She looks at me and says "It's a really big one, I know I won't be able to get it all"

By now my poor Grandfather has still not heard about my medical issues, but knows that all I do all day long it wipe butts. I return to my office, sit down and start to tell him about my doctor's appointment when Buddy starts crying and Bug yells down "Mommy, help! Buddy pooped in his pants!"

Back up the stairs. Sure enough, he is standing in front of the toilet, pants at his knees and two HUGE logs nestled gently in his pants. He is going through this phase where he doesn't want to poop because he is afraid it might hurt. So he waits until the last possible minute, or in this case, the minute after the last possible minute. Using the aforementioned wipes, I plucked the two very impressive turds from his pants, (and yeah, something that big coming out of that little butt, I suppose it would hurt!), clean him off and get him some new pants.

My Grandfather, having heard all of this, is now laughing so hard he can't catch his breath. In a span of 5 minutes, I've dealt with three different types of poo. That is my day. What I didn't tell him is that later in the day I had an appointment to take the Australian Shepherd to the vet to get her anal glands expressed, they were impacted and she was butt scootin' and smellin' rather rank.

Wednesday was a day that I'd rather forget.

But here is the medical bullshit.

Friday the 8th, at about 4pm, my kidney started to burn and flare up in moments of agonizing pain. I thought that perhaps this was a stone trying to pass, so I tried to ride it out. Saturday at 3pm, after Bug made a 3 point shot in her basketball game (if they were keeping score that is) the burning became so vicious, I became nauseated and we went to the ER.

A CT scan revealed no stones blocking the ureter, but some dilation, and several rounds of dilaudid and phenergan did nothing to ease the pain and nausea. I was admitted overnight. At some point during the night I was given Zofran for nausea, and now I must add that to the growing list of medicines I'm allergic to. Can honestly say I've had better nights.

The next day I spoke with the doctor on call who admitted me. He was a very nice internist who had kidney stones in the past. He sent me home with oral dilaudid, which takes care of the pain quite well. The urologist came in to tell me about the dilation, and she let me go home. The only problem was the way I was going to get home.

Super G had gone to pick up a special piece of flooring that we had ordered for the great laminate flooring project. On his way back from Lumber Liquidators to the hospital, he found himself boxed into a lane on the interstate with a street sign blown down in the road in front of him. He had no choice but to drive over it. Everything seemed fine until he went to leave with the kids (I had not yet been discharged and was vomiting still) He had two flat tired on our SUV. It was 30 degrees outside with a 40 mph wind, i.e. very cold, especially to a guy with no protective hair covering his head.

So for the next two and a half hours, while Super G struggled to change the one tire and used Fix-A-Flat on the other one, I entertained two very bored and LOUD children in the hospital. Then we had to go to the mall, because Sears is always at the mall, to get our tires fixed. I got to sit in the play area, with my greasy hair, two day no-showers smell and hospital band waiting for our tires to get fixed. Yup, it was a GREAT weekend.

Then Wednesday, prior to the massive pooping, the doors on the Hulking Mini-Van of Death were frozen shut, so all the kids had to climb through the front doors, including me who had to get to the back row to fasten Whitey's harness, and then snap in Buddy and Bug, and head over to the other side of town where I got a very nice girl (sucker) to watch all three of them while I went to see the Pain Management Dr.

But wait, you say, isn't Wednesday a school day? In normal states, it is, but in Central Ohio, notsomuch.

You see there was cold precipitation on Monday, causing a two hour delay. Then on Tuesday there was two inches of snow on the ground, causing school to be canceled. Tuesday night came the freezing rain, and thus school was canceled again. If they canceled school in Nebraska because of cold temps or a couple of inches of snow or ice, no one would go to school for the entire first quarter of each year!!!!

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!

So the pain Dr. was nice, but didn't know how she could help me, because I really didn't have anything they could treat with methods other than narcotics. Then she got ahold of a copy of an MRI report done in May of '07.

Here is verbatim what the findings on my lumbar MRI:

There is moderately severe facet and ligamentous hypertrophy and facet arthropathy. At L5-S1 there is a minimal disk bulge. At L4-L5 there is a minimal disk bulge.

My PCP said that I had normal degeneration that would improve with weight loss. This Dr is saying that I have arthritis in my lower spine! Ack!

So I'm having steroids injected into the facets this coming Wednesday. Not exactly excited about this, but perhaps it will help me out a bit. I'm still dealing with quite a bit of kidney pain, and am trying to get in with a nephrologist for a second opinion. Even the on-call Dr at the hospital said that stones can hurt just sitting in the kidney.

So that is my life. Up to my armpits in poop and falling apart at the spine. Oh well, could be worse, I could be Hillary Clinton.

Remember, people: Bros before Hoes!!!!!