Positive

It is one year from the day the pregnancy test comes back with a YES+ on its little liquid crystal screen, and we are not, as I'd been planning, about to get on a plane to Florida.

To clarify -- I didn't decide upon learning we were going to be parents that I wanted to observe the first anniversary of said news by hitting the beach. It is sheer luck that on the morning before our trip, I happen to be scrolling through the pictures of O. on my phone, looking for a recent one to e-mail to a friend while I wait for the breast pump to do its business. I notice how long the photo stream has gotten, images predating even the Great Elimination Diet of 2011. Time to clear out the clutter. But then the picture of that YES+ flashes by and I pause. One year tomorrow.

I remember taking the picture, not out of sentiment but out of a need for proof. I knew the battery in that digital dipstick would die long before I'd believe that we were really and truly going to be a family of three, so I snapped the shot and filed it away like a secret. During that shaky first trimester, I let it whisper its promise to me when I worried O. wasn't going to make it. Yes, it's real. Yes, you can handle this. Not just yes, but YES+ you will get through whatever may come.

One year later, I'm making a mental game plan on how to space out the pumpings en route to Troubadour Dad's destination birthday celebration so I don't completely drain the pump battery before I can find a wall socket on our layovers. Life before O. is practically unrecognizable.

I notice the text message from my mother after I've finally chosen a picture to send: "You need to call me right away if u can." I brush aside my momentary irritation with the random shorthand pronoun in the otherwise normally typed sentence. What's this about? I tap the phone's screen to dial my mother's cell. Dread mixes with the feeling of hunger in my gut. I'm always hungry these days. But the thought of granola and coffee (quarter caf) slips down the list of priorities as I wonder if something has happened to my father.

There is no reason to expect such a thing today. But the alarming lack of detail in the message leaves me fearing the worst. You don't text someone the news that a loved one has suddenly taken ill or become victim to some other misfortune -- you call. But we're two time zones apart, and it's barely 7 a.m. in Seattle. I imagine my mother, worried about waking us up but also trying to manage whatever it is that's so serious it can't be conveyed in writing. I wait for the first ring at the end of the line in Texas, eyes scanning the half-packed feeding supplies on the kitchen island. Disassembled bottles and nipples and cleaning supplies wait to be sorted into various carry-ons. I'm hoping they'll all fit. But is my father all right? Was there some kind of accident? Stroke or heart attack?

No -- just a wannabe hurricane raining on his birthday plans.

I'm simultaneously relieved to get this news from my mother and thoroughly exasperated. Couldn't you have just followed up your message with something along the lines of "change in travel plans"? I think to myself. I check the time on the text. It was sent a half-hour before I received it. Plenty of opportunity to add some clarification.

We chat about Tropical Storm Andrea while I make the coffee and toss oats, nuts, a dash of oil, and lots of cinnamon into a bowl. I stick the works in the microwave on half power, fingers flying over the buttons on autopilot. My mother wants to reroute everyone to another destination so we can at least observe my father's birthday as intended. It won't be the same, of course -- my father's been looking forward to heading out with the same sea captain he's been fishing with almost yearly since I was in high school -- but it's the gathering of the clan my father wants more than anything else. And even I can't say no to him, despite all instincts screaming otherwise. O.'s feeding problems make it nearly impossible to get five miles from the house, much less three thousand.

"Yes, I'll take a look at the options," I say to my mother. "Yes, I'll get back to you when I have more information."

Yes, yes, YES+. I have to laugh at the message in that photo, tossed into this alternate context. In truth, I'm not sure which gears to shift to make a new plan work at this stage of the game. It's certainly magical thinking on my mother's part that we'll be able to find affordable tickets, but having strategized on the level of a military maneuver to get O., the pump, and me to Florida and back, I'm not about to pull out of trip-prep mode until we are sure there's no way to convene, whatever the new location. Chez Dr. Sis and Marketing Sis in Boston? My parents' place in Texas?

I'm not an optimist by nature, and if I ever was one, the events of the last three months have certainly had their chance to turn me. It's less crazy-making to consider what might go wrong with O. and plan accordingly than to tell yourself the other shoe has dropped already and to stop worrying, to expect some kind of relief.

But it could always be worse. At every stage of the game when things have gotten worse, I've reminded myself that I should have been grateful for what was working. Maybe this is why I still believe we're going to get on that plane to somewhere the next day. I still have my plan -- it just needs some tweaking to accommodate a new destination.

*
I'm linking up today with Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below!

Highs and lows

Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Is this thing on? Screech of microphone feedback. Hi! We're still alive over here. Surreptitiously nudges door of bedroom closed to hide ground zero: perpetually full laundry hamper; half-unpacked suitcases; stack of unread magazines and library books; and spit-up rags draped over portable crib, infant rocking seat, and end of (still) unmade bed.

Where was I? Oh, right. O. is thirteen fourteen fifteen almost sixteen weeks old, a good bit past the halfway point to the day we can start introducing him to solid food. (In the name of all that is holy, that day cannot come soon enough.) I'm still pumping up to ten times in a 24-hour period to get him fed, which, per our calculations, is about 7 hours attached to the machine, plus time cleaning pump parts in between each use. Which means this is literally a second job -- the first being to feed the same milk to O., do his oral therapy, change his diapers, play with him, get him to nap, and, of course, love the heck out of him.

Attempts at essay writing have been laughably fragmented, kind of like most mental processes I assail with the grace of a zombie these days. But to provide an update, I thought I'd offer some high/low entertainment for the few who are still checking in here to make sure we haven't completely fallen off the earth. (By the way, you all mean the world to me and the shadow of my former self who misses this space more than I have words even on less sleep-deprived days to use to express my gratitude.) So, for those who've been asking how we're doing ...

High: O. is turning into quite the social little guy. He discovered the world at around ten weeks old and started cooing at everything. Somewhere between an owl's hoot and a dove's cry, his little invitations to converse go out to people and inanimate objects alike, and when he gets a response, his delighted smiles are so enormous that they almost don't fit between his ears. That's made introducing him to others hugely rewarding -- and it's motivated me to keep making lunch dates with pre-baby friends, even if getting out of the house requires precision organization and timing as well as a good bit of luck to make it to an engagement and back before the next scheduled pumping.

Low: Pump schedule anxiety. As you get off by a few minutes here and there throughout the day because you wanted to go have some social time or run errands that you'd otherwise have to depend on your husband to do (which means he'd have to do them after work, depriving you of any time together before you have to go to bed), you're suddenly out an hour or more of sleep because you have to shorten the time between pumping intervals overnight to play catch-up. That sentence probably makes no sense whatsoever if you've never had to do pump schedule math, but just trust me when I say it sucks (ha!) to have to choose to give up even more sleep time, when you already get so little of it, or accept the alternative -- living in near-total isolation five days a week. Hard to say which is more detrimental to one's general mood since the former continues to deplete serotonin, which you need proper sleep cycles to make, while the latter just makes for a very lonely existence. And no, listening to your husband snore in blissful oblivion in the same room while you pump does not count as time spent together.

High: Did you know dark chocolate has been shown to promote serotonin production? I've been leaning heavily (no pun intended) on this brand* of tasty goodness to keep the sleep deprivation from pulling me completely under.

Low: I've been leaning heavily (pun intended) on the aforementioned chocolate. I don't have much baby weight to lose, but it's not going anywhere as long as I'm going through a few bags of these morsels per week ...

High: O. has discovered how to bring his fists to his mouth and keep them there, which means he can self-soothe for much longer periods of time. Hello, three-hour naps!

Low: O. is only successful at self-soothing when he's on his tummy. Putting baby to sleep unsupervised on his front is a big no-no until he can roll over. Enter three-hour sleeping baby-watching sessions. I have nightmares about infants who find creative ways to asphyxiate (self-strangulation with swaddle blanket, among others) the moment someone takes an eye off them. While this is not nearly as great a threat in real life, O. has managed to get his swaddle inside out and up over his head in the throes of slumber:

Note too that he was aligned with the long axis of the crib when I put him down and was able to rotate 90 degrees on his back (how?!) also while asleep. I hope this doesn't mean he's going to be a sleepwalker.

High: Two Skype accounts + two laptops + USB camera = instant video-equipped baby monitor. Skype even puts a video window on your computer screen when you've minimized the application but still have a call in progress. Guess what I'm watching right now as I type. Indeed, I can now take some advantage of O.'s developing nap schedule to do things like exercise. Yes, the laptop is perched on the elliptical at this very moment -- we're big fans of multitasking these days. I wonder if I can also pump while working out on this machine ...

Low: Protecting the nap schedule means even less opportunity to go out. Disturbing your baby's daytime sleep on a regular basis can supposedly lead to poor sleep at night, which is the last thing we want to encourage, and already we know O is much more difficult to get to sleep whenever he gets overtired. Of course, O.'s longest wakeful period happens to occur right before rush hour traffic begins, and you really have to want whatever it is you're going out to get if it means you risk being stuck away from home for way longer than you'd anticipated. Lunch dates may soon give way to afternoon coffee dates. See pump schedule anxiety.

High: Since O.'s become more successful at getting his fists to his mouth, he's done some good work on his jaw to loosen up the muscles. We're now getting him to latch much better, even though he's still not efficient enough to take a full meal on his own. This device, which has a reservoir he can drink from simultaneously at the breast, is helping us. Recently, O.'s occupational therapist increased our "homework" from two nursings a day with the feeder to four, with the goal of eventually doing every nursing this way until we can wean him off the feeder as well. There is hope! I can't believe I can say this after so many weeks of feeling that there wasn't.

Low: More frequent nursing = erratic, delayed pumping + clogged ducts + more nipple damage. We're forever trying to walk the line between getting O. more nursing time and not injuring me to the point of increased infection risk. Unfortunately, we're battling what we think is thrush. I'll spare you the details, but if you're fighting the same fight, there are some decent (though scary) resources available on what you're working with -- consider yourself warned if you really want to go looking. Latching is, to the say the least, way more painful with all of the above going on. One step forward, two steps back. We now log additional time running pump parts through the dishwasher (three cycles daily) and sterilizing every set by steaming it in the microwave afterward.

High: Out of sheer frustration with the limits of being attached to a pump 7 hours a day plus all the extra cleaning time, I've gotten shockingly adept at pumping in unusual places and situations, even with O. in tow. I can now set up and use the pump entirely on my own in a public location (with the help of two nursing covers) as long as there is a flat surface I can set the apparatus on and a safe place to put O. so I don't have to hold or wear him (assuming he's amenable to that in the moment). I have also figured out how to nurse and pump simultaneously to address, at least some of the time, the conflicting demands of maintaining milk supply and getting O. more latch time. I feel like a one-woman circus every time I have to do either of these things, but I'm also weirdly proud that I have developed working solutions to get around these rather sizable situational obstacles. A car adapter even makes it possible to take the show (literally) on the road -- we managed to have our first road trip as a family over Mother's Day weekend. It was just 200 miles to Portland to see some good friends of mine from college, but it might as well have been twice the distance, as it took twice as long to get there with our various stops to dig out or put away pump parts and milk storage supplies. Fortunately, after a few rounds, we started to develop a better system, but it still needs some streamlining to be space-efficient. I think the pumping equipment occupied more of the seat than I did for most of the ride, which won't work for longer trips.

Low: Speaking of which, we have been somewhat arm-twisted into going to Florida for Troubadour Dad's destination celebration in honor of his 60th birthday next week. Feting this occasion will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, which we certainly consider to be a good thing. Working out the logistics of said trip, however, has been a nightmare. There is that whole problem of space limitations when pumping on a plane (and we thought the front passenger seat of a car was a squeeze!) while simultaneously juggling a lap child. There is also the fact that breast pumps, as medical equipment, are subject to certain FAA rules and individual airline policies. The hospital-grade model we had rented isn't permitted for use in flight because it only works when plugged in. Because our airline does not wish to be liable for any passenger's medical needs because of power loss or failure (the outlets on planes are sometimes turned off by the pilot at certain points during flight, according to our airline's Special Assistance desk, which handles queries from folks like us), I had to spend the last several weeks chasing down a hospital-grade rental with a battery that could be recharged and would last for more than a single pumping. I found one after a lot of research (hey, what is overnight pumping time for?) but its battery had been run down so badly that it wouldn't hold more than 15 minutes of charge when I tested it at home. Which meant I had to find more time to take the whole mess back to the renter and have them send it to the manufacturer to exchange for a new pump. See pump schedule anxiety. Oh, and let's not even think about how we're going to make that schedule work across two 14-hour travel days ...

So there you have it -- apologies that it's taken a month to write. We are zeroing in on our departure date with alarming speed, which means I should be using this time to deal (further) with trip logistics. Tips for air travel with an infant and/or taking a baby to the beach are very, very welcome! (Please ... forewarned is forearmed.) I have to say, as the ringmaster of this Cirque du So-Lait, I never thought things could get this crazy. The silver lining, I suppose, is that when O. either figures out how to breastfeed well or he's old enough to get his nutrition in other ways, getting through a normal day, with or without travel, will feel so much easier. At least, I'm counting on it!

* The experts recommend that you consume dark chocolate that is at least 70 percent cacao, and I haven't determined if this product qualifies as such, but given my food sensitivities, this was the only option available to me. If you're dealing with postpartum slump and can consume something clearly marked 70 percent cacao or more, do it!

Nine weeks

That's how long I've been on this crazy elimination diet.

Yes, I chose not to write about the testing while it was ongoing -- it was life-consuming enough that I needed this space to think about other things, like what I've been examining through my most recent series of musings. I plan to continue adding to that, but more intermittently now that it's established (for me, as a commitment through habit of thought).

In the meantime, I'm beginning to get the much-wanted answers I'd been looking for. Preliminarily, we've determined that dairy products from cows do not love me, as much as I love them. Goat dairy is kinder, but ambiguously so. Eggs lie somewhere in between on that spectrum. Corn and soy are friendly.

Today I will complete one of three different gluten trials, and then we will suspend testing until our return from Hawaii. Our original plan was to be done with all the trials before the trip -- this Thursday! -- but because the dairy tests worked me over so thoroughly, I needed a lot of extra recovery time between each of them, which pushed our testing timeline much further into the fall than I'd anticipated.

I'm a mess of mixed feelings about it all. Relieved to have results at last, some of them quite definitive. Frustrated but resigned to the fact that more testing has to continue when we get back. Disappointed that the dietary limitations we've discovered so far will mean some significant changes to our original vacation plan.

I'd wanted a true getaway, where we'd have largely unstructured time to lie on the beach with a stack of books, bob around in the ocean, catch some tropical sunsets, feed ourselves on inexpensive local cuisine. We can still do plenty of all this -- but we'll have to be vigilant about what I eat that I haven't personally prepared (don't get me started on the pervasiveness of dairy in commercial foods, but do check out this site if you need guidelines for your own dairy sensitivities). And we'll need to cook some food as backup for moments when we're unable to find something that works at those mom-and-pop restaurants (or roadside stands) whose plate lunches or noodle bowls we were so looking forward to sampling. I guess it's the dream of being totally carefree -- not having to think so hard about what needs to be done ahead of time or what contingencies we ought to anticipate -- that is looking more and more unrealistic, and it makes me sad.

Still, I'm determined to be over this by the time we leave. This trip is meant to celebrate our surviving much, much worse. Like, say, all of 2010; the residual aftermath of an extended thesis year; the accumulated tension from the two-year commute that changed us both indelibly.

So I'm making a plan now, to minimize the mental effort we'll have to put in when we arrive. Grocery stores? Located. Cooking facilities? Secured, through our bed-and-breakfast hosts. Restaurant menus? Downloaded and vetted. Restaurant staff? Where practical, already contacted to ask if they can accommodate my dietary needs.

I hope, hope, hope that it all pays off. We may not get to throw caution to the wind, but at least these preparations will let us use the majority of our time to relax, rather than spend it on pesky logistics ...

Scenes from a graduation, part 1: getting there

This is the first in a series of posts chronicling my whirlwind second half of May -- there was too much to put in a single post, and the trip generated much for me to think about, so here's the compromise: a story in parts. For the entire series, please click here.

My suitcase gapes at me from the bedroom floor and I wonder if the zipper will close. Nine days of clothing for three different cities with three different climates and three different kinds of celebration -- this is what I have to pack within the confines of a single carry-on.

My first stop on this trip is Almost Dr. Sis's graduation from medical school, which promises to be cold and rainy. Very rainy. Here in Seattle, we're used to mist and drizzle, but in the Midwestern town where she's lived for half a decade now, there are thunderheads gathering and a long sweep of heavy gray downpour following behind.

On this Friday afternoon, I've just tucked a pair of wool slacks into place -- it promises to reach the mid-40s in the evening, though we're in the latter half of spring -- when the phone rings. It's my mother. "Our connecting flight was canceled and we're driving from Chicago," she says, with irritation. "Can you look up directions for us?"

I can hear my father at the wheel in the background naming interstates. "Do I want 290? 294? Ask her which one, which way -- " His agitation rises with what I'm guessing is each passing road sign. They are on the arteries that skirt O'Hare, circling blindly.

My mother tries to address my father's question before I've even had a chance to grab my laptop from the bed. He doesn't trust her answer; they bicker. I fumble at the keyboard, calling up maps, the hair on the back of my neck beginning to stand on end. The memory of previous car trips from childhood: my mother misreading directions, their ensuing fights, my sister and me shrinking small and silent in the back seat with our younger sister, still a baby, between us. My hands work faster now as their voices escalate.

"Here," I say. They're too busy arguing to notice. "Mom. Mom." No answer. In my own home, two thousand miles away, their presence is suddenly too loud, too close. "WILL YOU BOTH SHUT UP ALREADY?"

Silence.

I wince, expecting even now, as an adult, a sharp reprimand from my father for my tone of voice, but maybe only my mother has heard me clearly -- she is the one holding the phone. I plunge ahead before either of them can say anything, offering exit numbers and mileage estimates in lieu of an apology. "It's about seven hours," I note.

"We'll make it in less time," my mother assures me. "You know how Dad drives. By the way, he wants to know which flight you're on tomorrow."

I suppress a sigh, knowing my father is worried that I'll end up in the same predicament -- except with the graduation ceremonies scheduled for Sunday morning, I'll have much less of a window to get from Chicago to my final destination. It matters. My father, a doctor himself, will be the one to place the doctoral hood on my sister, a moment that, to me, feels somehow essential to witness in person, though there will be professional photographers and videographers to capture it all. And I wonder, suddenly face to face with that truth, why it should be so. Of course I am proud of her. But it is more than just being present to let my sister know, more than sitting in the same room with her for this long-anticipated, hard-won induction into the professional circle my father has been a part of for many decades. What is it? I ask myself. And -- with even more curiosity, as I suspect it is for different reasons -- what is it that makes my presence so important to him?

There isn't time in this afternoon to muse, only to finish packing. "Can she take the red-eye tonight?" I hear my father ask.

"No, but I'll look into bus options for tomorrow afternoon, just in case," I promise.

*

On the jet bridge the next morning, I check my seat assignment: 10A, on a window. When I can, I pick seats with a view; it helps with the tendency toward motion sickness both my sister and I have inherited from my father.

As I step into my row, however, I'm greeted by a solid wall. No porthole, not even half of one like some seats get when they happen to fall between windows. Just a beige expanse of siding. I peer at 10F on the opposite side of the aisle; the oval pane there throws light back at me, ordinary as can be.

I feel, not surprisingly, closed in against this blank barricade. I check the status of my next flight on my phone; still on time. But this flight, the captain suddenly tells us over the intercom, will be delayed. Chicago's still having weather.

D has my flight information and instructions to be near his phone around the time I'm supposed to land at O'Hare, in case he has to make a quick bus ticket purchase for me online. Will I be able to make my connection? Will there be a connection to make? I turn my frown to the wall to my left. I can't see what's on the other side, can't see what's to come.

*

It is the first flight I'm taking from Seattle after finishing my thesis, and for a moment, when we finally leave the runway, I'm a little giddy. When the flight attendant announces that we may now use approved electronic devices, I will not need to wrestle my laptop from my backpack and attempt to write. The goal I've been working toward for four years is all but done; only Little U.'s approval of the document -- formatting compliance, verification of my committee's signatures endorsing the final submission -- is pending. Perhaps by Monday, I tell myself, the day my sisters and I will fly to Texas to spend the middle of the week at our parents' home.

But as I speed toward the thunderheads in Chicago, without a view and without the deadlines I've been so used to, I'm forced to sit with my new lack of purpose. It's only transient, I know. Still, I envy, just a little, my sister's waiting future. A residency at a prestigious hospital in Boston is the next step for her. What the experience will hold is certainly unknown, but it's better defined than the summer I have before me. The plans for whatever I choose to do next with my life still wait to be constructed.

The plane banks as the captain adjusts our trajectory. I turn automatically to the window I don't have and feel my stomach protest. A quick glance to the right, to the view I can steal from 10F. It's limited, but it's better than nothing.

Every kidney has a silver lining, the sequel

Yep, this little nuisance again.

You'd think I'd recognize a kidney stone after the first one, but no, this one presented itself quite differently. Referred pain? You got it (rather, I did).

So a good part of Friday found me waiting here (the hospital's walk-in imaging clinic):


Not exactly my first choice for where to spend all that time. But when the ultrasound didn't reveal anything amiss in my gallbladder (a good thing!), the GI folks had to refer me to somebody else (with a practice in the same medical facility, but an entirely separate registration/appointment process). That doctor, whom I got to see only on the luck of some other patient's cancellation, sent me back to the clinic for an x-ray, which revealed the real cause of all the trouble.

The doctor was very kind and hung around after his office had closed, just so he could interpret the x-ray for me (it was late in the day when he ordered the test, so there was no way the radiologist would have the official report to him in a timely fashion). He could have gone home and told me to wait for the results, to be delivered by phone after the long weekend, with orders to go to the ER if things got worse before then. But he didn't, and I'm thankful. Because of his kindness, I was able to go home with an answer and greater peace of mind. I'm still under orders to go to the ER if anything untoward occurs, but given the size and location of the stone, that's very unlikely.

Who knew I'd be glad to have a kidney stone instead of the alternative?

(Don't get me wrong; it still hurts. But given the choice, while alone, I'd rather deal with a problem I can treat from home as opposed to something that requires hospitalization, no matter how routine. Who would feed the kitty?)

I just hope I'm not in for a repeat of this in the future. Especially since it occurs without warning and in such misleading ways! Worst fear: that it happens while I'm on a plane. If I'd gone with D on Thursday instead of staying behind to work on my thesis, I'd have been somewhere over Texas during the nastier part of that afternoon. I suppose I should thank my writing obligations for preventing that ... ?

On a lighter note

It's been busy, as I'm sure you've guessed, but life chez Troubadour is back to normal as of yesterday. In relative terms, at any rate.

I'm not going to go into all the details right off, but I'm happy to say that my parents' visit was manageable. All the prep leading up to it figured significantly in making it so, but there were also moments that were enjoyable entirely for what they were, not because I used any magical thinking or conversational stealth to make a difficult situation better.

Troubadour Dad stayed for an extended weekend; my mother stayed for an additional week. During the last part of her visit, we drove down to Long Beach, a tiny town at the southwestern corner of Washington, for their annual kite festival. It's been running for thirty years, but D only found out about it early this summer.

Road trips to new places with Troubadour Mom are always fun because she still has her sense of adventure (my dad is another story, but Mom works on him every now and then). We were pleased to give ourselves lots of firsts on this brief weekend, which included:

Mom's first visit to Oregon! (We stayed Friday night in Astoria, which is just across from Long Beach Peninsula by way of this bridge.)


First time flying a Revolution kite for all of us, and the first time flying any kind of kite for both me and Mom. A master Rev flier was giving lessons to interested bystanders, so we lined up for a try. What a rush!




Mom even managed to land the kite on her second attempt without crashing:

These aren't easy to fly in light winds, but they can do amazing things. Each of the Revs in this clip is flown by a different person:

Then there was my first time dipping a toe in the Pacific Ocean. Even though we moved to Seattle three years ago, I'd never had the chance -- the Puget Sound isn't the same thing even though it's technically connected.



Two weeks of playing parental vacation director means more than a few things around the house are in need of attention. And the fall semester started yesterday! So it's back to earth after much flight. But I'm on both feet and glad.

First photo courtesy D; second, third, and above photo courtesy Troubadour Mom

Every kidney has a silver lining?*

So after dinner Thursday, just as I was posting my previous entry, I noticed that my back was hurting -- odd because I've never had back problems, and I've never known blogging to be a strenuous activity involving large muscle groups, etc. "Hmm," I said to myself. "Perhaps this is some weird kind of indigestion?" I curled up on the couch to see if it would help, but no dice. Ditto my attempts to massage whatever sinews seemed to be knotting up somewhere to the right of my spine.

Almost Dr. Sis (the one in med school) happened to call at that moment. At this point, I was fairly uncomfortable but not sure if I was overreacting to some silly back spasms. "What do you think this is?" I asked her.

"Well, it could be your pancreas, at which point, that's a surgical emergency," she said. "If it gets worse, go to the ER."

Oh. Okay.

Ten minutes later, I was in enough pain to make it difficult to move in any fashion, so I called up a friend, who drove me directly to the hospital. Good thing we went when we did, as there was a sudden influx of walk-ins after I was admitted. As it was, I waited an hour to be treated, and by the time the doctor got to me, I was in tears.

Fortunately, the diagnosis was pretty straightforward: "You have a kidney stone," the doctor said, after a quick trip to the CT scanner (aided by some truly wonderful IV drugs that took all the pain away). No surgery needed either, thank goodness. I was sent home with a prescription for more painkillers, advice to drink tons of fluids, and orders to follow up with my regular doctor in a few days.

So the weekend was less productive than I'd hoped it would be -- even though I was only technically in pain for not quite three hours Thursday night, I was completely exhausted on Friday and didn't really feel back to normal until Monday. My stack of student papers, to be graded by Thursday, is still much larger than it should be. And my birthday, which fell within those recovery days, slipped by rather quietly. (I did get lovely phone calls from my family, but because I didn't want to worry my parents, who were traveling, and my other sister, who was dealing with a nasty paper herself, I didn't mention the ER visit.)

There is a VERY positive side to this: on Friday of this week, I leave for Seattle again. Imagine if that kidney stone had chosen to wreak havoc while I was 30,000 feet over Montana. There would have been no option but to divert the plane to get me to a hospital (you can't confirm the presence of kidney stones without a scan, and there are too many other scary things that could be wrong if you leave the diagnosis at a guess, even if you can administer painkillers to treat the symptoms). So I'm okay with the way things turned out. Relieved, in fact (no pun intended).

I'll leave you with a picture, courtesy of Almost Dr. Sis, who created this diagram of how a nephron works when she was studying for her board exams last year (click on it for a close-up). Truly amazing what these tiny things do and how a small imbalance in their regulation can cause so much distress.


*Credit goes to Almost Dr. Sis for the title too. That was her response after I told her how the Thursday night (mis)adventure turned out.