God's Plan

I know in my heart, and my head for that matter, that my world is not ticking to my clock. Everything runs off of God's watch. He controls the timing of events, the sequencing, and so on. I am always humbled when I am abruptly reminded of this fact. Tonight, Monday, was supposed to be a relaxing night filled with laundry, chores and possibly errands. Of course, there would be some Colton time as well - before we went to bed. Well, at about 4pm this afternoon, I started to not feel very well. Let me stop here and go back for those I haven't spoken with recently.

Thursday morning I woke up feeling pretty under the weather. I thought maybe it was a blood sugar issue so I had some breakfast. Apparently, my breakfast was my problem. See, I made a stratta Sunday night and cooked it Monday morning. This was my attempt at eating healthier at home, introducing more vegetables in my diet and not wasting my entire paycheck on sausage burritos and hot chocolate from McDonald's. Well, apparently the eggs in my stratta couldn't hold up for more than just a couple days. So I ate the Sunday old stratta Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then Thursday. Well, my system didn't think that was cool. So I had some pretty less-than-ideal symptoms all day Thursday. Friday I was still a bit queasy so I stayed home from work but kept Colton with me. The weekend was better. I did notice some serious dehydration symptoms so I did try to rehydrate myself before today. And so here we are on Monday...

So I'm not feeling well at work. I decide to leave early (for me) to head home and relax. I'm coming down with another cold (sore throat and congestion in my nose) so I had suggested to Doug that we eat at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant so I could have pho (pronounced phuh as in funky). As I was finishing up loose ends at the office, I started to get a lot of abdomenal cramps. This seemed odd, but they were dull so I figured it would all pass. On my way to the car, I started to get a sharp pain in the left side of my body. As I drove to pick up Colton and take him home, I realized the cramping was subsiding and the piercing pain was getting worse. I called Doug and told him that any food for me was probably not a good idea as the nausea was setting in. He headed straight home instead of picking it up for me - which was a very sweet gesture on his part! Well, after talking through my symptoms, I realized the pain I was feeling was oddly familiar to the kidney stone pain I suffered back in 2003.

So Doug dropped me off at the ER to get a CT scan. Turns out...I have a 4mm kidney stone, and it's location is very high. This complicates things, but that didn't surprise me because I had to have my previous stone surgically removed as well. So long story short, I'm going to see the urologist tomorrow to schedule surgery to remove this stone. For the first stone I had, the urologist removed it with a little basket tool that has a built in camera attachment. It was a non-invasive surgery. The method that will be attempted for this stone will also be non-invasive, but it will utilize shock waves to shatter the stone into much smaller pieces and hopefully dislodge it so I can pass them all naturally. Both methods require me to be completely under. We'll see how it goes...

On top of the stone diagnosis, the CT tech noticed something wrong with my abdomen. He noticed that I have a more than normal quantity of lymphnodes in that area of my body. They are also increased in size. However, my white blood cell count for now is low. The reason this is of a major concern is that non-Hodgkins lymphoma runs in my family. My dad has had it twice, and we lost my dad's brother/my uncle to it as well. Genetically, I follow my dad so that's even more of a concern. I will be following up in about a month with my general doctor to monitor my white blood cell count. If it elevates, or they believe they should biopsy sooner rather than later, we may find ourselves with a very precarious diagnosis.

Anywho, all of that said, please pray for me and for the doctors that I will be in contact with this week for the stone surgery as well as the doctors that will help me to monitor my lymphatic system. And please pray for Doug as he will become an even more tremendous help with Colton. And please praise our God for sending me a kidney stone so we could find the abnormal lymphatic set up in my abdomen. The laundry can always wait to another day. God had very important information to tell me, and I thank Him for the message. 10-4 Father God!