Well, the stone in them, more specifically. Yesterday, just before I left work I had a sharp pain in my side – it left like I had pulled a muscle or something. I thought nothing of it, and went downstairs to meet Charlotte. That wasn’t fun at all. I got outside, and leaned against the building for a few minutes, and it didn’t hurt quite as bad. Once Charlotte got there to pick me up, the pain was back. A few minutes into the car trip, and I was in agony. I’ve only ever hurt worse once before, when I had a migraine at UNCA that was so bad I lost big chunks of my vision to the pain.

Charlotte turned around, and took me to the Emergency Room. Got there about 5:30, was admitted into triage at 5:45. Didn’t actually go into a room until 6:15-ish. They gave me some anti-nausea medicine and some painkiller, and I got to talk to a doctor about what was wrong. He asked a bunch of questions, and then poked at my side and stomach. It didn’t hurt all that much when he was poking, but shortly after he left the pain came back, incredibly bad. This is when they gave me the narcotics.

After a while, I was wheeled into another room, and got a CAT scan. They told me it was either a kidney stone or my appendix, and the CAT scan would be able to help tell which. Pretty soon, they told me it was kidney stones, and there wasn’t much they could do, other than prescribe me painkillers.

We left the hospital, went to a 24-hour pharmacy CVS, and got the prescriptions. We finally got home at 11:15 last night, having not yet eaten, and with a 6 month old child who was pretty angry from being kept up all night.

This morning we decided not to get on the plane to Florida to see my grandfather. I’m going to be too drugged up to be much help or conversation. Combine that with a grumpy 6 month old who is teething and shrieking and a wife who hates to fly… yeah. We’re staying put. Now that this is written, I’m going to pass the boy off and take some more painkillers.