All I can say is our Thanksgiving of 2009 was so not what we expected.  Usually my extended family will meet over at my aunts house for a potluck dinner.  I always bring the snicker salad and this year I also was going to make some meatballs.  Unfortunately due to the illness in our house earlier in the week I had decided we wouldn’t be attending the Thanksgiving dinner just in case we were still contagious even though I didn’t think we were, but I would rather be safe than sorry.

So for our small Thanksgiving meal here at home we decided we would have Venison wraps, snicker salad (hey.. I had the stuff to make it, I might as well right?) Sweet potatoes, corn and apple pie for dessert.  Things were going great… Paul made up the venison wraps while the kids & I organized the living room as we would be putting our Christmas tree up later that night.  Since it was getting closer to lunch time Paul thought he would start grilling the wraps and outside he went.  Then not that long afterwards he came back inside with excruciating pain.  He kept saying something wasn’t right and had a sharp pain on his left side.   At that point he was knealing by the couch, but before long he was on the floor moaning really loud. 

I asked if I should be taking him to the ER (I know he has a low pain tollerance so I wasn’t quite sure how bad it truly was) and he said not yet.  Well, a few minutes later he told me to call someone to come here so they could watch the kids.  I knew my parents would be over at my aunts house (10 minutes away) so I called them to see if my Dad could come over and watch the kids so I could take Paul in. 

My Dad hurried over and Paul and I jumped in our car and off we went.  Thankfully the hospital is only 10-15 minutes away from our house and when we arrived Paul walked to the ER door, but as we were at the window signing in he ended up falling to the floor in pain where the receptionist started hitting the button under her desk to get a nurse out there ASAP.   We (the nurse and I)  got him in a wheel chair and off we went to the ER room and as soon as we got in the room, the ER doctor walked in and told the nurse he would put the IV in if she would go get the pain meds.   

The pain meds weren’t working fast enough for Paul and he was still moaning when they wheeled him away to get a cat scan to verify what they were thinking (as we were) that he was dealing with Kidney stones.   As I sat in the little room I realized one thing I should of done before my Dad came over was put the book I was reading in the car.  It would of been a perfect time to get caught up on my reading.  ~wink~    I lucked out though as there were some  magazines in the hall so I grabbed the AARP and really, it wasn’t as bad as what I thought it was going to be.

Before long Paul was wheeled back and I could tell the pain meds had kicked in as he looked so relaxed as if he could fall asleep.  What a difference 5-10 minutes could make!  Needless to say we sat around waiting for the results and when they came back we found out that yes he did have a 2mm size kidney stone that was about to drop in his bladder.   Since he had to urinate before we could leave (they wanted to make sure he didn’t also have an infection) we were stuck there for awhile yet. 

We finally we able to leave and were given 3 different prescriptions that we needed to get filled.  Of course with it being a holiday we had no clue what would be open so the nurse looked it up on their list and supposedly the Meijer pharmacy by our house was suppose to be open until 6pm, which gave me time to drop off Paul, go inside to Thank my Dad for watching the kids and then head out with 1-2 hours to spare!  So that’s what I did and after I found a nice close parking spot and started walking towards the store I could see that the pharmacy looked quite dark and when I got to the door there was a sign saying they were open, but until 2pm.. not 6pm!  So I went across the street to Wal-greens to find out their pharmacy was also closed, but there was one about 20 minutes away that was open, so off I went.  You could tell they were probably the only pharmacy open in town as they were quite busy and I didn’t end up getting home until 6pm, but after we ate and before Paul decided to hit the hay I did talk him into bringing our Christmas tree up from downstairs and the kids & I spent the night decorating it! 

As you can see, it was quite a crazy day for me (along with the days & week before) so needless to say you will now understand why I might end up talking about how excited I am for this upcoming Saturday when I get to go to Birch Run with a couple friends and will even be spending the night!   Let alone when it gets closer to my Las Vegas & orlando vacations!!   Needless to say I can’t wait for next year as I have a feeling at least the beginning of it will be the year of travel for me!