What a day!

I'll warn you first off that this might be a lengthy post. Yesterday was quite the roller-coaster. We went in to the Doc to listen to the fetal heartbeat and all. We waited for 2 hours, but finally got in for our 2 minute visit. All is well. It is week 16 now and we scheduled an ultrasound for week 20, and it falls on dad's b-day. Anyway, I was heading up to the school at about 5:30 for a study group and called Sherrie. She was staying late at work because the Doc took so long at lunch. At about 6 she called me, but I didn't answer because I was in my study group, and deep down she knew that. She called again as soon as it stopped ringing, and I just figured that she wanted to leave a message and hung up on the first call out of habit, so again I didn't answer. Call 3 was right after call 2 quit ringing, so I decided I'd answer. She was crying and could hardly talk. She was on her way home from work and had to pull over because it felt like she had been hit in the kidney. So of course I go running from the library in a frenzy, run every red light on the way to her car, all while thoughts of kidney failure, dialysis and transplant, saving the baby and my wife. I was a wreck. I just pulled the truck over by the car, left keys in it and all, jumped in the car, and flew to the ER.

I pause now for a comment on the marvels of modern medicine and science. They can send ultra-high frequency sound waves through a probe, rub it on your belly, and the waves will reflect a picture of your fetus growing inside. Simply amazing and astounding, yet the hospital has not come up with a way to get the hurt patient into the ER and the car into the parking lot. NO VALET PARKING at a hospital? What if I had to drive myself to the ER? Is that not the biggest neglect or oversight on earth? 

Back to the story. They put her on an IV, just out of practice mainly, then drew some blood and had her give a urine sample. After about 30 minutes she was back to normal, yet they didn't know what the problem was. Of course they wanted to check the fetal heart beat, so a nurse walks in the room with what looks like a toy they picked up out of the little kid's waiting room and turns a speaker on to listen to the heartbeat. Apparently it was an ultra-sound machine, but it looked like that little microphone and speaker that Heidi and Hil had so many years ago. I'm pretty sure this thing was made by Toys R Us. So the genius nurse turns the speaker on and then probes, and COULDN"T FIND THE HEART-BEAT!! It took her about 2 minutes to find it, all while we are both listening. Wouldn't it be better to find the heart beat and then turn the speaker on? She finally found it and it was just fine. They couldn't tell anything with the urine or blood, so they sent us to real ultra-sound man to check the bladder and kidneys. The ultra-sound was still inconclusive, but while he was probing her belly I pointed out our little fetus. Ultra-sound man was surprised because you still can't tell Sherrie is prego. He was amazed that I could see the fetus, so I pointed out that although my formal training is in Equine Health, I can still see my own fetus. 

Another pause to recall my first comment on this site about a SURPRISE and how I thought I saw a penis. Well, it is still only week 16 and they usually wait until week 20. I told ultra-sound man (I kind of like saying ultra-sound man) that if it was a Hall then we could tell what it is at 15 weeks. So alas, he probed a little more, the fetus waved hello, and behold, this will come as no surprise, I am right!! IT'S A BOY!!!!! (And no, this is not some freak joke. I'm being serious.)

Well, back at the ranch, the Doc was still not definitive about Sherries pain, so they put in a catheter and got a fresh urine sample. I'm sure that was like Christmas morning, but they finally got blood in the urine and said it was a kidney stone all along. Poor girl! We were released at about 11:30 and she is staying home from work. Needles to say I will answer my phone on the first call now. She is feeling fine this morning and thinks that she already passed the stone. And that concludes my post.