Monday, November 25, 2013

One of the scariest nights of my life

So I had a pretty shit evening last night. Well, not me, my mom had a shit evening last night which made me incredibly scared, nervous, and worried. I went to the gym in the afternoon and got a great workout in my some friends. Yup, gym friends. I got home around 6 or 6:30. I had intended to make spaghetti, even stopped at the grocery store for supplies and had everything set out to go. About 6:45 I picked up my phone and noticed that I had 2 missed calls from my mom. My phone was on silent, which is why I missed them. I didn’t think too much of this. She left a message but my phone was behaving badly and I couldn’t retrieve it. I decided to just call her back. What ensured was horror on my behalf.

In my entire life pretty much I can’t recall a time ever when I called my mom and on the other end of the line I hear her sobbing and in obvious physical pain and her answering with “Emily.” I’m like, what, what the hell is wrong? She was like, I am in physical pain, it hurts so bad, it’s like someone is stabbing me. I can’t move. Instantly I went into shock mode. I have never heard my mom like this. I had to try to decipher thru her muddled dialogue what exactly was going on only to ascertain if she was immediately bleeding to death and I needed to call 911 or if it was something else. I got out of her that it was her side; she thought it was her kidney and it was awful pain. I told her I’d be there in a couple minutes and we were going to the hospital. I live literally a mile away from my mom. I was still in my workout clothes, so I Just ran into the bedroom, kicked my shoes off, grabbed a pair of pants and boots, grabbed a jacket and took off. I was still in sports bra and top, that didn’t matter.

By the time I was pulling into her driveway my aunt was there as well. I have to admit because my phone was on silent it was about 15-20 minutes before I got back to my mom and I figured she probably called someone else as well. I sprinted into the house quite panicked honestly. My aunt was helping her up and to her car so we could go to the hospital.

I felt helpless and powerless. I have never seen my mom in so much pain. She is a strong woman. In all fairness I probably get a lot of my grit and determination from her. She doesn’t complain and doesn‘t even cry that often. I certainly am a teary freak comparatively. Anyhow, it was just so sad to see her pained expressions on her face. My aunt drove her car with my mom and I followed behind in my own vehicle. In the end it was probably better to have multiple vehicles so we went that route. Along the way to the hospital my aunt suddenly stopped the car and pulled over and I followed. My mom got out of the car and threw up on the side of the road. I knew something was obviously wrong.

When we finally made it to the ER, as per typical of the ER, it takes forever for anyone to actually administer pain meds. It was probably easily 30-45 minutes before my mom actually saw a doctor. As everyone pretty much concurred based on my mom’s description it turned out to be kidney stones. She eventually got pain med that took away the excruciating pain she was in, thank goodness. They did a cat scan and finally came back and said that this was a GIANT stone and that it would have to be surgically removed. Apparently this is a 6mm stone trapped inside a 5mm tube thus being stuck and severely painful for her. She was admitted into the hospital last night for surgery today. The entire process is very slow and lots of sitting around.

By the time mom was finally taken to her room and we got her situated enough that I felt comfortable leaving her, it was almost midnight. So yes, I did not get to bed until after midnight last night, but honestly I am just thankful that it wasn’t something worse.

Those moments of terror and horror when someone you love so much is in so much pain and you can’t help them is unbearable. It also puts lots of things into perspective. I had a lot of crazy thoughts running thru my brain, fears really. In the end a kidney stone is minimal compared to what it could have been. Thank goodness it was only what it was.

She had surgery earlier today and everything went fine. Hopefully, in a few hours, she will be able to go home tonight. So far so good. It is just incredibly humbling to be reminded of how important and fragile our bodies and health are. Humbling that the things we love and take for granted can so easily be taken away. Not that it was but the moment of panic is all too real. So as this Thanksgiving approaches I feel extra thankful that it was not worse. Humbled that I lived thru that experience. And reminded of the value of good health. Not that this prevents such things, but I sure do not ever want to have situations like this where my own health or lack of health is the cause of something that could have been prevented. That was not the case for my mom this time. Apparently kidney stones are common and unavoidable. My mom is in good health so I am sure that helps make the recovery process easier.

Crap like this just puts life into perspective doesn’t it? I will never forget that phone call where the other end was my mom in such pain. Seriously one of the scariest moments of my life. Ever. That is a phone call you never want to have.

Remember to tell the people you love today how important they are to you and how grateful you are to have them in your life. Lesson learned last night. Happy Thanksgiving.

3 comments:

mrfixitno1 said...

So glad your Mom is going to be OK, super scary Em... (((Hugs)))

Foo said...

It's Kathleen/Foo I set up a blogger site 5 years ago to sell my grandpa's car... LOL, didn't realize it attaches "mrfixito1" to my profile. Ha-ha!

Melissa @ Faster In Water said...

Glad you are there for your mom and I hope she is okay now!