How to have a really rough day

*Wake up to what seems like a normal day and get kids ready to carpool out to Safety Town for Whitney to attend her summer camp there.

*Before you leave, have your husband announce that he is in severe abdominal pain and doesn't know if he can go to work.

*A few minutes later, he tells you that he needs to go to the doctor.

*Rearrange carpooling. Call three stay-at-home friends to help watch the other two kids. None of them answer.

*Take your oldest and youngest child with you to husband's primary care physician and hang out in the lobby while he is seen.

*The PCP tells your husband to go to the emergency room but gives him nothing to help with his pain which is unbearable. Watch him writhing in the car as you drive.

*Call friends back and finally get a hold of one who agrees to watch the two kids and makes you feel like you're not even ruining any plans for her. (Thank you!!!)

*Take husband to ER. Arrive around 10 am. The doctors and nurses are great and take him back fairly quickly. Watch husband endure pain that is reminiscent of natural child birth. Get a glimpse of how helpless he must have felt as I went through that. Feel like a doulah, "Keep breathing. Here comes another one."

*At 10:51, watch as the nurse administers pain meds through hubby's IV. Pray that this works.

*At 10:54, see husband relax for the first time in four hours. He asks, "What was the name of that drug?" in a way that makes me grateful it is only available by prescription.

*At 11:15, listen to hubby describe the hallucinations he's having: holding keys, seeing me in a curtain, holding hands with me, an employee coming to visit him, laughing at a driver's license of the guy from "My Name Is Earl" with a big afro.

*11:20--hubby asks if he's wearing shoes, "because I can't feel them." Has his last hallucination of Brandon and Whit standing outside throwing cherries at the house.

*Keep hanging out in the ER while hubby gets IV fluids, blood tests are run, and an x-ray taken. Feel grateful that he's able to sleep, you brought a good Harry Potter book along, but wish you had something to eat as your stomach starts growling.

*At 12:50 get a diagnosis from the doc that your hubby has a 4 mm kidney stone on his right side that has made it half way down to his bladder. Ouch! Feel grateful that you're the caregiver and not the patient.

Doomed to never be healthy or pain-free?

*Leave the ER around 1 pm. Pick up prescriptions for hubby, drop him off at home. Pick up kids from friends' homes. Wonder what you would do without such wonderful friends.

*Come home to find that the fridge isn't working. Everything in there is lukewarm. Figure you better call a repair guy now because it's Friday afternoon and you don't want to worry about it over the weekend.

*Have the repair guy show up an hour later, only to say that he can find nothing wrong with the fridge. He vacuums the coils which were really dirty and says, "I hope that was it. Call me if you have more problems. That'll be sixty bucks."

*Wish that you were taking a nap, but can't now because your youngest, who slept soundly through the coil vacuuming just woke up from hers.

*Get a visit from next door neighbor who informs you that there is water leaking down from your house to theirs. Possibly a broken sprinkler system. You have got to be kidding me.

*Come back in the house to find hubby awake and after talking with him realize that while you've been dealing with the household dilemmas, he has been throwing up all afternoon not able to keep anything down. Tell him he better call the ER. They tell him he needs to come back in and get an IV.

*Call yet another angelic friend who agrees to watch all three kids while we run to the ER and get an IV. It's 6:40 pm.

*Hang out in the waiting room of the ER for THREE HOURS. Listen to hubby throw up through the paper thin walls of the restroom. Feel helpless and terrible that his ordeal is just dragging on, but realize things could be worse. A couple comes in around 9:30 and they have their toddler with them.

*Finally accompany him back to a room at 10:15. Heed his encouragement to go out to the van and take a nap. Sleep for two hours in the van and wake up startled, hoping nothing has gone wrong in there.

This is what you look like when you've spent 11

of the last 24 hours in the ER...and you're just there
for moral support! Not a pretty sight, friends.

*Go back to his room to find him with an IV for fluids, pain meds, and anti-nausea meds. Feel relieved that he looks comfortable and has gotten some rest.

*Check out of ER at 2 am. Feel exhausted. Stop at a 24 hour pharmacy to fill anti-nausea rx. Get home close to 3 am. Feel overwhelming gratitude for your friend who has put your kids to bed and slept on your couch for hours.

*Kneel in bed at 3:15 am and offer a prayer of thanks that the doctors found out what was wrong with Drew, were able to relieve his pain, that he didn't need surgery, and that the kids were taken care of while we were away.

*Fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow and hope that the kids sleep in. Tomorrow has GOT to be better, right?