For 4th of July this year, Nolan and I abandonned Martin at home and took off with my parents for the Joyce Family Reunion at Lake Tahoe. The first couple of days were filled with typical family fun: camping, cousins, swimming and some OMG genealogy discoveries. However, on day four things took a turn.
The Background:
My dad had been pretty tired for most of the trip but now it was becoming chronic and he simply was not looking well. The other family members really noticed it and became concerned. My dad has always had a problem with kidney stones so he knows the signs and tends to ignore it with a philosophy of.... "and this too shall pass". But this time he had been peeing blood for several weeks now and it was not stopping. The blood loss was making him very weak and tired and yet it had not wore down his stubborness and refusal to see a doctor.
The Plot Thickens:
On the prompting of several family members (not to mention our own concerns), my mom and I decided we needed to get hime to a hospital NOW. So several family members plotted and planned and ultimately my mom and I kidnapped my father. The first step was to get the keys of the truck from him. We were 30 minutes outside of Tahoe and he was refusing to hand over the keys saying he was fine to drive. We guilt tripped him in with the Baby Nolan is in the car excuse. (Honestly, driving the Kingsbury grade when you are drop dead tired is never a good idea.) Once we were on the road and my dad noticed we were driving in the wrong direction he yelled and argued that we were driving the wrong way. My mom stayed firm on her directions so he proceeded to call us a bunch of "Yokos"?!? I think it was an attempt to clean up his language in front of Nolan. I believe the phrase he was trying to replace was "dumb shits".
Unfortunately, Urgent Care was closed and now our cover was blown. He knew what we were up to. We drove back to Lake Tahoe and went to the emergency room. As my sister walked in to see my parents, a gurney was beeing wheeled out with a sheet completly covering a body that seemed to lay flat once it got past the shoulders of the body .... no head. Chills! Not a very uplifting feeling for her.
The Conclusion:
It turns out my dad is riddled with Kidney Stones and one kidney was starting to balloon (Riddled = hundreds). At 2am he was transfered to the Carson City Regional Medical Center and went into surgery to put in a shunt so they could start passing. Well, one marble sized kidney stone was blocking the ability to even put a shunt in so the Dr. had to chip away at it for almost 3 hours (it was suppose to be a 30 minute procedure). For the time being, my dad is doing fine. He still has to go get all these stones blasted by sonars so they break apart and can pass easier. We cut the trip a few days early so he could recover at home. The drive back from Lake Tahoe sucked for him. My mom was telling a family member on the phone that the shunt gave my dad a sense of urgency when he had to go to the bathroom and he interrupetd, "more like a sense of EMERGENCY". I think they both put it lightly. Poor guy.
