Earthwhisper Fiber Arts

I drank the water and got really, really nauseous and bloated feeling.  I did the jumping and well…the only thing that happened is I woke up with a bad backache.  No stone passage.  I am sure it is due to my abnormal anatomy.

My skin feels very good this morning, I am definitely rehydrated.

On an odd note, Tony bought a car alarm for his car.  The past couple of weeks he has been calling to get it installed and the phone was busy.  So he finally drove over there and the business has been burnt down.  The installation was paid for with the alarm…now he is very bummed.

Is this eczema? 

I get this every year around summer time, all over my lower legs.  They are like little sores.   I normally don’t wear shorts because of it and that bothers me.  At first I thought it was from shaving, like I was allergic to the razors.  So I stopped shaving and while that helped, I still have been getting this.

Hey, if I don’t have fiber related things to post about, at least I can consistently fall back on complaining about myself.  I know that is pretty lame, but I would like to figure out what this is and how to clear it up once and for all.  My doctor hasn’t been much help.

Sock…Baby Cable Rib…in Lorna’s Laces…

You can’t really see the stitch definition real well, but I am liking it.

Crocheted baby blanket for my cousin’s baby:

It is made with 2 different colors of homespun and then two strands of Caron Simply soft. It is kind of thick, so I am hoping it is used more as a floor blanket. I ran out of the darker homespun, so I am probably going to start going around the blanket in the dark blue SS and the light blue homespun.

I did some more spinning. This has silk in it. I am looking into getting involved with the local spinning guild. It isn’t very close to me though. Their last meeting on Sunday was an hour away. I hope that I can get together with them periodically. I really want to be able to learn to spin sock yarn.

I know I have some old projects I need to pickup and finish. One of those is my dad’s sweater. I need to get the sleeves knitted up.

The job search is going okay. I have been thinking about the job I interviewed for and I am not sure if it will be a good fit. Honestly, besides the commute, their hours are not set. So it could be possibly that I would have to work the late shift and get off at 7:30pm. I wouldn’t get home until 8:30pm and that isn’t acceptable to me. I want to find something closer and where I got off work around the time Sierra got out of school.

I received an email on another application that was an auto-email. They told me I didn’t meet the minimum criteria. So, I sent their hr an email explaining why I thought I did with my resume. We will see what happens.

It is crazy that I am looking for a job and then today I didn’t leave the house because my kidney stone was killing me. Apparently I am a factory for those. Don’t ask questions here as I have no answers. The doctor told me I had no stones in my left kidney and that is where it hurts. That is where the last stone came from, too.

eta:  this morning I had blood in my urine again, so maybe this is a sign that I am closer to passing the stone.

I managed to make it to Target yesterday.  It drained me.  Last night my stomach killed me all night.  It still hurts me and now I feel I am getting a bladder infection (maybe from getting dehydrated?)  Sierra started throwing up last night.  Poor thing.  She is doing better.  It is amazing how when kids are sick it doesn’t seem as severe as when adults are.  I hope we are both on the mend soon.  She is so excited about valentine’s day (tomorrow,) but I don’t think she will be able to go to school for her party.  They are off of school on Thursday, Friday, and Monday.

Last night I was just feeling so awful. I knew it was my kidney from the recent signs. At 1am Tony called me and told me he was on his way home from work. By 2am, I was in excruciating pain, nothing the pain meds I had would help me with. So Tony called my sister-in-law and she came by and sat in the house while Tony took me to the ER.

It took the ER awhile before they gave me their drugs. However, right after they gave me the shot, I had pretty much the worse pain ever that even their drugs couldn’t control and then I didn’t have any pain at all.

Yes, I passed the stone. It was from my left kidney (the one with the two ureters.) It is triangular shaped. What a relief. I feel so much better, in absolutely no pain at all.

I feel like it is such a happy ending to my sick story. Hopefully that is the last of these things. (Prettty interesting that the doctor told me there wasn’t a stone in the left kidney and that is where this came from…)

eta:

Oh…and for those who are grossly curious…

Here is the #*%&#$ that passed.

Love the jagged large end and then the pointy triangular end…not really a big stone as it is only between 2 and 3mm, but I think it is the shape that was this ones problem.

Oh, and when I got to the ER, I was lucky.  There was no one in the ER.  It is a brand new ER, the waiting room was huge.  I was taken to a bed almost immediately and was given meds within 30 minutes from when I got there.  My blood pressure was 200 something over 100 something…really, really high, but I was assured that was normal for someone in that much pain.  The total ER time only took 3 hours, which was really, really good.  I have never been in and out of an ER that fast.

Oh, and to tell you how much pain it was, I asked Tony to google Exploding Kidney, as I was pretty darn sure my kidney was going to explode.

Closing the chapter on this book. 

The pains are all gone.  Well, not completely, but enough for me to not have to take any medicine.  I saw the doctor today who wants me to have some more tests, blood biochemistry test and 24 hr urine one.  This will examine the minerals in me…yeah!  He also suggested I drink 8 to 10 glasses of lemonade a day.  Who would have thought?

The interesting thing is of all people to get kidney stones, it is me.  I have always been a huge drinker.  I just am not one to leave a glass of anything laying around.

I have family here for the next few days and so may not be online much.  We had our family Christmas party at my house yesterday and it was fun and perfect.  The kids had a good time, as did the family.  Tony and I are exhausted from it.  I fell asleep on the couch watching a movie last night and woke up on the couch this morning, I guess I was being stubborn in my sleep and wouldn’t move or wakeup.

I took a nap today and right now am feeling the best I have in a long time.

Oh, and the doctor told me the kidney pain in the morning, upon waking up was muscular…ha ha, not likely.  I laugh about this because I did some google searches on what was going on with me and it seemed that a lot of people had my same problem and were told the exact same thing, muscle pain, which they were upset about, too.

I have to say that here is an example where the medical community needs to wakeup a bit.  If you ever experience kidney stones/ureter pain, you can decipher what is a muscle and what is a kidney/ureter pain.   They are not even the same or close.  Since mine is getting better I decided to just ignore the little comment from the doctor.  Apparantly, it is one of those things that they don’t know and I will assume it is healing pains from being traumatized.

I am sorry I haven’t emailed all of my blog readers and commenters back individually.  I do appreciate and read every comment and thank you for all of them.

I promise to have pictures soon…I made some quilted placemats, some napkins, knitted 2 pairs of irish wrist warmers, am working on the baroque cardigan for my mom (she has tried it on as I didn’t want to go any further without seeing how the arms fit.)  I had knitted 2 scarves, but gave them away at the party before I had a chance to take pictures.  I also have organized my desk/yarn area.

My kidney hurts and I can’t sleep.  The crazy thing is my doctor told me I shouldn’t be in any pain anymore.  Per the ct scan, there is nothing to be causing me pain, still some small fragment stones in both kidneys, but nothing blocking the ureter.

Of course, I think maybe he damaged my ureter or my kidney or maybe I am just so darn fat in the middle that the ct scan doesn’t show exactly what is going on.  I don’t know.  All I know is that I hurt.  I dread sleeping too, as I wake up in the worse pain which for some reason I try to sleep through instead of get up and get pain meds.  If you are in pain, don’t ever do that, it is just stupid. I wonder if it is one of the body’s defense mechanisms.

I am working my butt off to get my house in order for my family’s Christmas party.  I still have a long ways to go.  I have most of my presents finished.  Can’t show them.

I just cut out some fabric to make placemats.  I am only making 10.  I am expecting 8 people (maybe 9)…and with the drama that happens at family events, maybe only 7.  (not counting kids, of course.)  I am only making 7 napkins, is that wrong?  Okay…maybe I can come up with an 8.  Apparantly I underestimated yardage on that and am too lazy to go back to the fabric store.

So…should I stabilize my placemats with something?  In the past I quilted them with a thin batting.  Should I do this, or should I just sew two rectangles together and turn them?  I am looking for something quick, but also something that will look nice and hold up.

Deneen sent me a fabulous Christmas present.   She sent me some gorgeous roving that I need to take a picture of and come back and edit this post.  I absolutely love them and really can’t wait to have my spinning wheel set back up in my bedroom.  I need Tony to move some things for me before that will happen, but maybe by this weekend.  I would like to show my sister how the spinning wheel works and she will be in town for a quick visit from Texas.

Sorry this is another pictureless post.  For someone with a new camera, I am not doing much with it, huh?  Honestly, I am afraid to leave it out because of the kids (particularly Madeleine)  and if I put it up it isn’t convenient to just grab it and shoot.

Oh…and I think I have finally convinced Madeleine to stop eating the ornaments.    I hope.

As if there was something better to do when you pass kidney stones…ha. For the sake of science, photography, and well just those curious…here are the stones I have passed. So far only 3 “big ones” and about 50 or more little things that resemble salt all the way up to beach sand. Those along with what I will label stone #1 went with me to the doctor’s office today and were sent to the lab. I never did take a picture of the tiny flakes.

Stone #1 At first it was “black” and then over time it sort of turned whitish and sort of like a mini lava rock. It is about 3mm

Stone #2 & #3 (which really aren’t #2 and #3, but more like number 48 and 49, ha ha…I passed today. Also, both around 3mm, though one maybe a little less. They have an orangish/yellow discoloration sort of due to the dye that I had to take in one of the pills that they claimed would help with my pain (NOT.)

The last pictures have much higher detail and definition, due to the fact that I used a zoom lens that had a nice macro. I had no idea I could get this quality on something so small. It is sort of like a microscope, though I had to stand far away from it and zoom in.

I will come back and update this thread when I find out what mineral it is. Why can’t it be diamond or gold or something of value?

Should I scan my x-rays? They are kind of frankstein looking.

Having a stent in your kidney sucks.  I pretty much hurt from right after I went pee until the next time I had to go again.  The urgency thing was awful.  I would have this severe pain after going in my bladder area and then this deep pain in my kidney, like someone kicked me.  At night the pain would kill me in my kidney.  There was no sleeping position that was comfortable.  I would find myself tossing and turning eating pain meds like candy and then only sleeping 1 1/2 hrs until I had to go pee again and then it would start all over.  During the day I found myself falling asleep in a sitted position as that was the most comfortable.

Well, I got it taken out today and that really sucked.  It hurt so bad that my brain went into a black hole, pass the point of coping and into a whole different dimension.  The girl that was assisting the doctor tried to tell me it was similar to getting a catheter put in/taken out.  No it isn’t.  There is no comparison.  In fact, I am pretty offended they didn’t offer any type of anesthetic or anything to make me comfortable.

It was suppose to take 15 seconds, and it didn’t.  It especially sucked when the doctor said, “oops, it slipped.”  It was at that point I realized I get to go through the pain all over again.

The crazy thing is I have passed more of the larger stones today, after not having the stent in.  My kidney hurts me and my whole left side feels traumatized.  I am sure I will feel better tomorrow.

I had another xray done today and the stone that was in my right kidney is still there.  Before I had the procedure done on the xray it looked between the size of a penny and dime. Now it looks like the size of the eraser on the end of a pencil.

I didn’t get to see my doctor as he is on vacation.  I am suppose to go back in 2 months to find out what they are going to do about the kidney stone in my right kidney and also will tell me what type of stones they are.  I am tempted to cancel it as I don’t want to go through this stent thing again.

So now I am hoping that I start getting better and the right kidney stone stays put until atleast after Christmas.  I am sick and tired of being “sick” and in pain.  I think I might write my doctor’s office a letter and tell them that it would probably be better for their patients if they did something to make them more comfortable during that procedure.  Some valium would have been nice, truly.

Seriously, that procedure hurt worse than the kidney stones.

So, I have taken some pictures of the stones I have passed.  Should I show you all a picture or would that gross you out?