The Blessing of a Kidney Stone

If you haven't heard, I was attacked by a kidney stone last week. Sounds pretty bad, I know, but God's hand was all over the situation. Funny how a little thing like a kidney stone can remind me how real my God is! Here are my list of blessings which came from my kidney stone.

1. The kidney stone waited until my last night of my week long beach trip to attack.
2. It hit me at 1:00am when the kids were asleep.
3. My brother Mike and sister-in-law Andrea were still at the condo so they could stay there with four sleeping kids (my three and nephew Holden).
4. I brought a container of formula and bottle for my parents or Mike or Andrea to feed Juliet in case Matthew and I went out to dinner while at the beach.
5. A wonderful brother and sister-in-law who will rummage through our room in the dark looking for said formula and bottle to feed Juliet at 4:00am since she was too sleepy to eat at 11:00pm.
6. The incredible tolerance for pain I have from the Lord. Yes, the drive to the Grand Strand ER was horrible. I felt as bad or worse as I did while Matthew drove me to our hospital when pregnant with Braewyn. When I got there, I was measuring 9cm!
7. My most loving husband who did not ask me, "Do we really need to go to the hospital?" at 1:00am but instead immediately began looking for directions to the hospital on his phone. I guess it's because he's seen me in similar pain as mentioned above.
8. No waiting at the ER! Other than having to fill in papers which only took about 15 minutes but those were excruciating 15 minutes.
9. Meeting very friendly nurses and a doctor at the ER and being told I was a very stoic young woman after they discovered I had a 9mm kidney stone and was actually quite calm by that point.
10. Again my high pain tolerance and stubbornness because I was able to turn down morphine because I knew I wouldn't be able to nurse Juliet the next day if I took it.
11. The 24-hour CVS where we filled my Vicodin prescription but also bought Extra Strength Tylenol.
12. God's blessing of moderate pain during the packing up and cleaning of the condo and during the 5-hour drive home the next day.
13. Matthew's ability to drive home those 5-hours after getting only a few hours of sleep the night before.
14. The ability to see a wonderful urologist Monday after being told that she didn't have an opening until August (she was on-call Monday and they squeezed me in).
15. Incredibly loving mother-in-law who took me to the doctor that Monday morning and ended up staying with me there for about 5 hours (and then watched my kids most of the next day too!).
16. Amazingly NO PAIN from 2:00pm on Monday until after the next day's procedure. (My urologist was agast when she saw my x-ray. "That's the kind of stone that has most people rolling on the floor in pain!")
17. The strength to survive not eating from midnight Tuesday morning until 3:00pm that afternoon.
18. My SUCCESSFUL 11:45am procedure on Tuesday to blast that 9mm kidney stone (which was blocking my uterer!) with 2400 shockwaves. My urologist said if the stone didn't break up with the shockwaves, she would put in a coil from my bladder up to my kidney to decrease the pressure it was causing. Yeah, no coil needed!
19. Incredibly loving mom who drove me to the surgery center on Tuesday morning so Matthew wouldn't have to drive all the way home from work to pick me up.
20. Blessing of a great friend who babysat me and Juliet that Tuesday evening while Matthew, Philip, and Braewyn were at VBS.
21. Juliet's ability to drink from a bottle as I had to pump and dump my breast milk for 24 hours after being under anesthesia.
22. That container of formula which I opened a month ahead of that week because I knew she's probably need some while I was helping with VBS, but in fact she drank a bunch of it during that 24 hours.
23. The fact that VBS was going on last week as Matthew, Philip and Braewyn had dinner provided for them each evening.
24. The fact that my VBS assignment was dispensible (I was a crafts helper and I heard they had plenty!).
25. The realization of how precious my health is and how my Lord has each day of my life in His control.
26. So many friends and family members praying for me throughout the week.
27. Peace which only comes from the Lord in knowing that I have two more kidney stones in my kidney but that if either one begins to travel toward my ureter on it's way to my bladder, the Lord will give me the strength to bear up under it and the friends and family to get my family through it.
29. Now the ability to say, "Yes, having a kidney stone does feel like having a baby!"
30. The knowledge that no, I'm not pregnant as they give all women of child-bearing age a pregnancy test before administering anesthesia!