Thursday, December 29, 2005

A Bullet in the Back...

Hey, just a quick update. Took Sami to the ER at South Bend Memorial last night (12/28) at about 6 pm because she was having severe pain in her lower back. Turns out that she has an 8 mm diameter boulder in her right kidney (if you need a point of reference, a 9mm pistol round is only 1 mm wider -- see picture), which is too large to pass "naturally", so after a night of severe pain, dry-heaving and the unpleasantries of being poked and prodded, followed by morphine, nausea medication, and the general fun of sleeping in a double-room (i.e. with another patient right beside her) and me in the "lounge" amidst the fanfare of stampeding visitors during all hours of the night, they took X-rays at 5:30 am and we're still waiting back to hear when they'll do the procedure to remove it (they'll push it back up into her kidney, and then attempt to blow it into gravel using sonic, high-frequency blast waves). If they can do it today (12/29), they'll probably keep her again overnight for observation and then let her go tomorrow sometime.

Our friend Melissa Parrish came over at 11 pm last night to stay with the Munchkins, and then Henry and Debbie came and whisked them away this morning to keep for a day or so until i can get Sami back home. Again, we have learned the critical value of family and friends this year, and think we would be quite dead without them.

I'll try to keep posted from this point forward, but there's no WiFi access at the hospital, so may not have digital access for a while. Thanks for all your prayers and your concern. We'll call and update or write here as we are able. Love you all!

-jack

2 comments:

Jack Magruder said...

Update: The "procedure" ("You'll call it a procedure... but it's a surgery" - Billy Crystal in City Slickers) will take place sometime around 8 pm tonight. They're going to try the "blast method" and see if that will pulverize the boulder to get it small enought to pass normally through her systems. More as i get it. -sj

Manda said...

hey i've been meaning to post on here! i'm finally doing it, so i can cross that off on my list of goals for 2005. i think that 11 days (when you think that it's out of 365) isn't horribly belated.

my friend kim is coming to church tomorrow night with us. maybe i'll see you (one of you?) there.