This is not a post about anticipating anything in the writing arena. Most of that anticipation is good. No, what I'm talking about is something I have to deal with every few years that might or might not happen but that I dread as I dread nothing else in my life ... a kidney stone attack.
I woke up this morning feeling a little off. Then the familiar nagging discomfort in my side and back started. Enough to call in sick, put me back to bed and start to pray to whatever saint that watches over kidney stone sufferers that this would end up being just a bout of gastroenteritis or something. Started to feel a little better, discomfort still there but at a low level. Right now, the nagging pain is bearable but I'm on tenterhooks that it'll flare into agony at any moment.
Usually when a stone attack happens its like no other pain in the universe. I've had 3 kids and 3 stones in my life. I'd pick childbirth any day. So while 'something' is happening inside it maybe like an air raid warning - the actual bomb dropping is coming but I don't know when. The last one (in August 2004 - kidney stone sufferers usually remember the dates of their attacks. Traumas like that imprint indelibly into your psyche.) started with a few crummy feeling days then two weeks later I wake up on vacation in our cabin with my infrequent but always memorable visitor throwing me onto the floor with a swift kick in my side - and kept on pummeling. Luckily we were in a small town that had a hospital. I'm not a big fan of drugs but, I gotta say, whoever discovered morphine must have suffered from kidney stones. I remember that day in the hospital as the most memorable of the whole vacation. As soon as the drug hit, I fell into blissful, pain free sleep. With 3 kids, my sleep hasn't been deep for about 15 years so I REALLY appreciated it. When I woke up the pain was gone. And by the next day, so was the stone.
So, I sit here on watch. Hoping for the best. Expecting the worst. And not knowing when (or if) it will hit.
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