...That's not great.

What 4 inches of snow in April looks like.

We've already lost power twice tonight. It's going to be a long weekend.

The reason for this? We live in the Puget Sound convergence zone.  Frankly, I'm blaming it on Jeff Renner.  Just because.

This was MY Friday night; how was yours?

When you have experienced four major surgeries, including one that includes a 20-inch scar, 2 metal rods and the words "spinal fusion", you know a little bit about pain.  So when mid-day last Wednesday, I start to experience a relatively intense pain on the right side of my back, I didn't get too worried about it.  I assume I had pulled a muscle or something in a strange way.  However, it's different pain than I have ever experienced related to my back issues.  I try heat and mega-doses of ibuprofen to no avail.  I'm hurting. 

By Friday afternoon, I'm emailing my boss on a few issues and she happens to ask me how my back is feeling (I'm working from home).  I let her know that I'm thinking it may not be my back at all; it could be my kidney, but I have no other symptoms (no fever, no "burning", etc.).  I tell her that I've been having to take 800-1000 mg of ibuprofen every 4-5 hours to take the edge of off the pain. 

I check my cell phone later that night around 7pm and find a voice mail from her that she left around 4pm, telling me that she was very concerned that it could be my kidney and that she wants me to go to the doctor as soon as I can.  So, I call my doctor's office after hour nurse line.  Apparently, I've basically overdosed myself on ibuprofen ("So, you didn't follow the directions on the bottle, did you?") and I need to get myself to the hospital within the next 4 hours.  Great; it's 7:30 pm on a Friday night.  That sounds like fun.

RD and I make the decision that I'll drive myself to the emergency room and we'll go from there.   The wait at the Overlake ER was tolerable, and I was back in a room after about 2 hours waiting.  By this time, about 8 hours had passed since my last (and apparently over-) dose of ibuprofen and I am in quite a bit of pain.  The nurse seem unimpressed with my lack of symptoms - "No blood?  No painful irritation?  No fever?"  And the ER Doc, "Well, you don't seem to be in much pain..." 

Yes, I am a grantwriting, coffee drinking, Banana Republic wearing, suburban mother of two with a bad morphine addiction so GIVE IT UP.  The truth is I'm a girl who knows a thing or two about pain (like wincing and the fetal position won't help me) who is happy to be in the ER watching a re-run of Frasier.  Well, I was happy after they hooked me up to an IV and gave me a dose of dilaudid.  Wow.  That Frasier and his brother are funny.

Well, thank god there was blood in my urine, because it bought me a CT scan (well, it bought Aetna a CT scan).  Where, lo and behold, the scan showed that I am the proud owner of multiple kidney stones.  Fancy that.  It was one of those moments that I was oddly proud and wanted to tell the doctor that, "I told you so!", but I knew it wouldn't do me any good since he has control over all the drugs.  Once my diagnosis was complete, I was given a prescription for Vicodin, two different apparatus to filter my urine in the hope of catching my stones (a travel one called "Calcucatch" that fits in a plastic bag for my purse, natch), and instructions to follow-up with my doctor.  However, since I was discharged 2.5 hours into my lovely dose of dilaudid, I had an hour or so to kill before I could drive myself home.  I compromised by driving myself a block down the road to the Denny's so I could at least eat while I waited.  Buttermilk pancakes never tasted so good.

It's now Monday evening, and it would be really lovely to be able to wrap this story up with "And then I passed three teeny tiny stones and felt much better!!", but I haven't and I don't.  I stayed home from work today, but RD will be driving me to work tomorrow and a friend will drive me to see my doctor.

Because, really?  I'm so over it.

I'll take a heart attack for $1,000, please.

Last Sunday, RD's sister was able to spend the morning with us.  She lives in Oregon, but was in town for a personal event.  She takes her self-proclaimed role of "favorite aunt" very seriously, and the kids are always happy to see her.  Since I went out with some girlfriends the night before and was out pretty late (don't forget to ask me to tell you that story); RD planned to take her and the kids to the beach for the morning.  While still pretty cool around these parts, we had a lovely, sunny weekend and he wanted to take full advantage of it. 

I woke up around 10 am and called to check in with them.  We thought that she'd be staying for dinner, but it turns out she planned on leaving at noon.

I took a shower to wipe the FILTH off (but, can you really wash of drunk?), ate some breakfast, did some dishes, and then settled down with Newsweek on the couch around noon to wait for them to return.  RD is notoriously bad with time, so when he mentions a time, it's more of a suggestion.  But with his sister along, I thought for sure they'd be pulling up at high noon.

Well, noon turns to 10 after, then 12:20, then 12:35.  At 12:40 pm the phone rings.  "It's them!" I thought.  I jump up from the couch to get the phone in the kitchen.  The caller ID says, "Children's Hospital Seattle".

That's not great.

My heart pretty much leapt into my throat with the following thoughts bursting through my head, all in 2.36 seconds:

What happened?

Who's hurt?
Where's RD?
HOLY CRAP!!!!!
Who can drive me to the hospital?

I actually answered the phone, "WHAT HAPPENED!?!?!??!?!??" 

"Hello,"the monotone voice on the phone said, "I wanted to first say that this is not an emergency.  I am calling from the Children's Hospital Foundation...blah, blah, BLAH."  I pretty much tuned out after that.

What their caller ID should have said: "NOT AN EMERGENCY - Children's Hospital".

I still ended up donating $100 to their fund raising champaign.  That must be part of their plan - distract us with the possibility of our children needing their services and then we'll agree to anything.

To note: Children's Hospital Seattle is really actually quite fantastic based on the experiences we have had.  These have included a few emergency room trips for croup (most times in and our in under two hours) and a series of tests when Sissy was diagnosed with a heart murmur at 9 months old.  All the testing when so smoothly because everything there is sized for children and the nurses, technicians and doctors are skilled at working with kids.  For example, the EKG technician blew bubbles during the test which helped Sis forget she had about 20 things taped on her body.  While she does have a murmur, it's an innocent murmur, which means there are really no health issues (Sissy just has a little tendon flap in one of the chambers that causes a strange heartbeat).   RD has a heart murmur called a mitral valve prolapse, and, while he doesn't really have any issues related to this so far; he always takes antibiotics before seeing the dentist.   Oh, and he's been told he may need a valve replacement around 50 (which is no longer that far away!).

Today my sister found my blog.

I shouldn't of been surprised that she found it; it was hiding in plain sight.  Here's the e-mail I received this morning on the way to work:

Is there a reason I didn't hear about this from you?

http://thatsnotgreat.typepad.com/bethany/

Or am I not supposed to know?  :)

I surprised myself my NOT being freaked out about it.  I didn't intend to not tell her about it; but I honestly thought she would think it would be sort of "lame" (meaning, I was sort of "lame").  While she reads blogs, I didn't know how she would feel about ME having one.  I hadn't written anything scandalous or embarrassing; my blog fodder is mostly self-centered (my sister wasn't the least bit surprised).  Plus, I was just starting out and I didn't know if ANYONE would ever read it. 

But why would I be worried about what she would think?  I guess I wasn't, really.  And if I was at all it's because I love and respect her very much.  I've always looked up to her, even when I was the pre-teen and she was the college freshman.  We've grown closer as we have grown into 30-something adults with families of our own.  I'm blessed to have such a close relationship with her; not one that is strictly determined or dictated by our family ties. 

So, read on dear sister, read on!

Not good, people.

Lots of rain in the northwest today.  Flooded both at work and at home.  Here's at excerpt from an email to friends and family.  Check out flooded office photos on Flickr.

Yes, the whole thing (floods EVERYWHERE!) is super annoying, but some people in the area have it much, much worse. RD is currently ripping up carpet while I put the kiddos to bed; our friend, Steve, will be over in a little bit to help him out. The dehumidifier and fans will arrive tomorrow (RD's boss will be picking them up for us) and we'll be on our way back. The goal is to get it as dry as possible/as quickly as possible to reduce the damage. Rob has a restoration company coming out in 3 days (obviously, the are very busy).

Work was a bit crazy. I got there at a few minutes before 8; greeted by my boss and our director. Basement (our office's) flooded and the computer network is down (also in the basement). I go with our director to pick up coffee for the City's Emergency Operations Center (EOC) over at the Fire Dept Headquarters. We stick around there for an hour or so, answering phones, working on getting the remote network back up, etc. By nine, our facility folk had found Finance an office to use in the City Hall Annex (the building that the city owns) and the network is up. We had called off most Finance staff, so there was just a handful of us. We sent a couple people down to the basement (there were already people there sucking water out) to grab as many laptops as possible. We triage what needs to happen first (payroll runs this week) and figure out how to get that underway. I then make a run to Fred Meyer's to get pop, water, cups, tissues, socks, a safe and a change of clothes for me. I was able to sneak downstairs (hence the photos) to grab all the files I could off my desk and a few personal items. We also were able to grab the $$$ from our large safe, bank signatures (they are on a disk in the safe), the payroll printer, deposit slips, etc. The rest of the day was spent planning where we would be for the next week (the 210 room in the Annex), until we can get another space (which will also be in the Annex, but a much bigger space) wired and ready to go. A restoration company will work to get our offices, files, cabinets, etc. out of the basement (we're not supposed to go there anymore) and dry it out. We'll then be able to go through it before we move it back in. Sounds super fun, doesn't it? The good news (and only good news) is that we will NOT be going back to the basement (which we all HATE), but we will make the permanent move to the Annex (until the new City Hall is complete in 2009).