Last night around dinner time as the Zilkie family was driving home from a serving opportunity in the city of St. Louis, Julie stated that her discomfort over the past couple of hours had gotten a lot worse and she might need to go to the hospital. Now I am thinking, really?!?! Here is the subjective dilemma of personal pain...nobody else can feel it for you. Julie had been mentioning some discomfort in her side on and off for several weeks but it never went anywhere. Recently she had felt some lingering pain in her neck and went to see the doctor but nothing was found. So initially when she said her side was hurting again, I didn't quite know how to respond. However, over the course of minutes the look on her face and her countenance changed severely and our recreational 20 minute drive home turned into a high-speed race for the emergency room at St. Anthony's Hospital.
Evidently Julie has a number of Kidney stones, and one of them about 7 millimeters in diameter decided it was going to leave. Well for anyone who has had one...you know how the story goes. We arrive at the hospital with all 6 children and park the van outside the ER and head inside with my wife who can barely walk. David, now 11, is in charge in the van and the children are instructed to sit quietly while I get "Mama" checked into the hospital. Thankfully some of our small group members who had been at the serving event with us were able to come by the hospital to help while we figured out what to do with Julie, 6 children, and one nursing baby who has never had a night apart from Mama.
It was decided that I would go home and do my best to help Elijah, who still wakes up a couple times a night to nurse, through the night and a couple women from our group offered to stay with Julie all night at the hospital. Julie felt very cared for by her caretakers and made it through the night okay, in spite of incredible pain at times. Poor Elijah did not fare as well and was not happy each time he awoke and my smiling but non milk-producing self was there to greet him. I gave him a couple bottles with some milk that had been set aside months earlier by Julie. Nonetheless, our preparations for this type of occurrence did not console the poor boy who just wanted the comfort of Mama.
Finally, after a couple hours of tossing and turning and accepting that Mama wasn't coming, he settled down and ended up sleeping until about 8 a.m. which was great. Julie had a procedure to help remove the kidney stone around 10:30 a.m. and was in recovery by 11:30. Sadly the hospital took several hours to get her some food which was the final test before she could go home. We were eventually given the go ahead to come by and get Julie around 4:30 p.m. With the kids in tow we made the trip south to bring Mama home. Presently that is where she resides, and our world is almost back to normal. Due to her medications she is unable to nurse until tomorrow morning so even though Elijah saw Mama and got to be held by her, he is going to have another sad surprise when my smiling but non milk-producing self is there to greet him for another night. (Poor kid!)
Thanks to all of you who got the notification and prayed for Julie. She was in a ton of pain but came through it okay and no worse for the wear.
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