The Kidney

OK, so the kids' grandfather died on Sunday, March 2nd. That was a tough night and I sent the kids into school the next day so they could be with their friends and continue with their routine. Was this a good idea? YES. Was it successful? Well..........
Not necessarily.
On Monday, March 3rd, Drew was playing on the playground during a class which had a substitute. He climbed a waist-high ladder and reached for the higher monkey bars. He missed the upper bars, slipped, and landed on the lower ladder bar, then flipped over it.
When I picked him up that afternoon, he told me about the fall and complained that he couldn't take a deep breath. I had concerns that he may have hurt his ribs, broken them, punctured his lung and would explode at some point during the week. So, I took him to the evening clinic to check out those ribs........
No, the doctor poked around and noted that the pain was not in his ribs, but lower and he seemed to have more pain in his kidney area. He called for a urinalyses.
Guess What??? That showed that there was blood in his urine!!!
The Peds Doc told us that we had to go to the Emergency Room for further testing because he had SIGNIFICANT blood in his urine. The options would run anywhere from "watching him to surgery". NICE!!!!
The decision was to watch him even though there was visible blood in his urine. I spent the rest of the week viewing his urine. Well.........I haven't done that since he was a toddler, but I could see the dark color which indicated the high level of blood.
Who doesn't love spending 5 hours in the ER beginning at 8:00pm?
As long as things didn't get worse, we were cleared to get on the plane for the Funeral on Thursday. A follow-up with his family doctor on Wednesday afternoon showed high levels of urine still in the blood, but 3 days was too soon for surgical intervention.
We were cleared to go ahead with our plans to fly out on Thursday for the funeral..... the flight which would include the kids, their Mom, and ..........Ward's fiancee. I'll move to that story next...........