I had a doctors appointment in St. Louis on Friday, with the forecasted storm we thought about not going, but since it was our wedding anniversary we decided to go ahead and not reschedule. Our plan was to make the 4.5 hour drive on Thursday, go to the appointment Friday morning and spend the evening celebrating our anniversary. After leaving the doctors office we piddled around for a couple of hours until the roads started getting bad and decided to head back to the motel. This is where the trip got interesting. There were several wrecks and traffic was going about 35 to 40 mph on the freeway when the wife's phone rang with a St. Louis phone number. The caller asked for me and when the wife said I was driving in the snow storm the caller asked her to put the phone on speaker so I could hear. She said I was being called in as the backup recipient for a kidney and how soon could we get to St. Louis. We told her we were in town and and how far we were from the hospital she said we will see in about 30 minutes then, which was about 3:15.
Once in the hospital they poked, prodded and inspected me and gave me the green light to be the backup. We had beaten the Kidney to the hospital by over twelve hours so it became a waiting game. The doctors started coming in around 7 in the morning and poked, prodded and pried on me some more and said they had just gotten the kidney and were inspecting it. At 11 am Saturday they came in and told us that the donor kidney was not usable after all and to go on home.
Monday I went to retrieve my camper which had been stuck in a river bottom for almost a month because the narrow road up was to slick to chance pulling it out. I pulled the trailer to the top of the bluff, which took about 10 minutes at 2.5 miles per hour, dropped it at the top of the hill went to look at a truck. Came back to the camper hooked up and did nothing but spin on the soft ground, the four wheel drive would not engage, had to walk to neighboring farm and get a tractor to get me out of the field.
Tuesday morning our 15 yo Maddie was complaining about a stomach ache and feeling sick, she does not complain about pain, ever. got her back ot bed and another daughter comes out of the bathroom and says the water heater is dripping. I went to check and water was gushing out from the backside of the gas valve/thermostat. Maddie is still complaining about the pain, but I have water everywhere and the wife is trying to get the other girls off to homeschool coop. I get a new water heater, change it out and have everything back together by noon and Madison is now saying this is the worst pain I have ever felt. Called doctor, doctor says take her to ER to get tests to see if it is her appendix. Finally get her to ER about 3 pm, took forever to get checked, finally tests all point ot appendix. She was in surgery around 11pm and in her room resting by 1 am.
Hopefully the rest of the week will be uneventfull. I feel that God was watching out for us and Maddie. If I had gotten the kidney the wife and I would have been in ST. Louis and Maddie would not have had her mother by her side for this ordeal.
Sorry about the length, I just had to share.
