Tuesday, March 20, 2012

March 19, 2012 – How Did You See God Today?


I got to spend Sunday night and Monday in Avera McKennan having a kidney stone removed. We had a great weekend - lots of things accomplished - family over, and got some really cool haircuts. I had laid down for my afternoon half hour nap - I hate that part - and woke up with what I have come to know as a kidney stone attack. I have had and will have kidney stones my entire adult life. Not a huge deal, although this one was, so I just do what I have to do. I knew this was a good one immediately, as I was kneeling over the stool calling dinosaurs almost immediately, a sure sign of the old stone.
Matt and Jen hauled me in to the ER for treatment, which was timely. I wanted to nip this right away and get it out so I can start treatments this week. They ran a CT scan, confirmed my belief it was a stone, an 8 mm beauty, and admitted me to a room. I spent the night at the hospital on morphine hoping to get in on a removal in the morning. I had morphine as needed every hour – so I developed a pattern of morphine, sleep for about 15 minutes, wake up with pain, pray a rosary, morphine, sleep for 15 minutes, etc.
I prayed to the Holy Family for strength throughout the night. It was actually not too bad, I just settled into the pattern. I have had this stone surgery before. I was scheduled for surgery on Monday, and got to move there around 09:30 AM. I was not the first patient that day, so one has some delays. As I lay on the gurney waiting to get put to sleep, I prayed especially hard to have this stone episode behind me right away. Option number two would have been to blast the stone in a tub with ultra-sound waves if this surgery did not get it out. I did not want to go through that yet too.
To make a short story long, when I came too out of the surgery, they told me they got the big stone out. That was truly a touched by God moment for me. I have become far less focused on what I actually want and trying to go with God’s plan, but I cheated a bit here and wanted this big stone gone. They hurt. God answered that pray, and I was touched. Thank you for that, God. 

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