AL ENDS UP IN THE HOSPITAL:((

It's Kelly, our resident ace technician working on a broken coffee pot this afternoon.


FRIDAY NOV. 2/07

It was about 3 a.m. Friday morning when the first stirrings of pain in my lower abdomen woke me. It radiated from my lower back around my right side to the front. I had a similar pain a few days back but it wasn't as bad as this & only lasted about an hour & it was gone so figured it was something I ate & would go away shortly, but, it didn't go away. It got worse!! About 8 a.m. the pain was too much to take anymore so Kelly got on the computer & looked up the nearest hospital. Fortunately there was one nearby in the little town of Hugo about 15 miles southwest of Limon. I was able to un-hook the car, (did I mention the high winds & totally freezing temperatures) climbed inside, & Kelly drove me quickly to the hospital. The pain by now was extreme & I figured it was my appendix for sure....it wasn't. Also thought more about food poisoning....but nope, it wasn't that either. My Dad died of a large abdominal cancerous tumor in his late 60's so I had that on my mind as well as we rolled up to the emergency room. They had me on the table right away. No forms to fill out, no silly questions & no delays. What a relief it was when they put the IV in (ouch!!) & got some morphine started. Wasn't long & the pain was gone & I floated off briefly to some nice green valley's far away. A complete blood work-up later showed elevated white blood cell counts. Blood in the urine as well. The Doctor (nice fellow) was stumped though at the total absence of pain all of a sudden even after the morphine wore off. The only thing they could figure was that I had a kidney stone & it had passed at the hospital. I sure hope so because I wouldn't want to have to go through that pain again. The Doctor prescribed some meds & we headed back to the motorhome around noon. The rest of the day I spent resting. We'll see how things are in the morning & then make a decision whether to head off for Denver & the Rocky mountains or wait for a bit.

P.S. Too complicate all this, I had discovered Thursday afternoon that I had a tick imbedded in my left leg behind my knee. Leg had been really sore in that area for a couple of days & Thursday we spotted the tick. He was alive because I saw his legs moving & he had his jaws into me pretty good because I had to really pull hard to detach him. Grabbed my camera & took a picture of it & also the wound it left just in case someone out there runs across the same thing sometime. Doctor said to keep an eye on the bite & watch for symptoms of Lime disease...... Geeezzzz, it's been quite a trip so far!!