F I N A L L Y !

I got to see the stone that started it all.

Tonight was Mike's surgery. We were at the hospital at 5:00 like they said, and the surgery was supposed to start at 7:00.

We waited... and waited...

until 9:00. From what I understand somebody came in and had some sort of emergency surgery so we had to wait for another operating room to open up. This time we were at Desert Banner. Plus this time we had a different surgeon. This guy was great... and he talked to ME! LOL, much unlike the other guy that neither Mike or I liked.

The surgery was supposed to take 45 minutes, and probably took 46. Dang, I like this doctor! The other guy told us it would take about 20 minutes and then 2 hours later came out to tell me that it was over. I was prepared this time too, with an arsenal of magazines. Even though I ended up spending much of the waiting time eating a late dinner, talking to some people on the phone and playing bubble breaker on Mike's phone. My high score: 510!! I'm very proud.

-- The stone hadn't broken up at all from the last surgery, but I got to see the sucker in a cup. Big piece, and a lot of little pieces. All blown up. It was fascinating. ;)

So I ended up getting home at midnight, and left Mike still in the recovery room. He's in good hands and there isn't anything I could do at that point.

Thank you to everybody for the well wishes, the prayers, the funny kidney stone stories (I'm glad some of you still had a sense of humor after it was all said and done.) the meals, the babysitting... everything. It has been a long and crazy 10 days.

Now I wish they would give the spouse of said patient the left over stuff that makes you loopy and tired right before surgery so I could have a nice long sleep too. ;) The kids will be up and bouncing around in about 6 hours. Aren't they supposed to sleep in now that school is out? It will be a short night.