8 days to go before Kevin gets his kidney stent removed, and we’re back in the ER to deal with extreme pain that’s spiked so badly some evenings that normal pain meds can’t deal with it. We’ve avoided this place for the past 10 days or so, but tonight it was just too much for him.
Not the best memories of this place; the bed he’s in is in that back room at Kaiser Redwood City where my father spent time during his final months with leukemia. 21 years and the place hasn’t changed a bit. Realistically we should feel fortunate that Kevins pain, as severe as it is, isn’t the cancer just discovered in the bed to the left or the potentially-failing heart in the bed to the right. Not much privacy when all that separates one bed from the next is the equivalent of a hung-up bed sheet.
The long list of meds he’s on has been gone over and we now wait for the next step in the drill… even more powerful meds than he’s already on, administered via IV.
8 days. We’re 3/4 of the way there!
My apologies for any strange typos; not quite so easy updating from an iPhone. –Mike–
Update- We finished at the ER about 11:30pm and went home, with Kevin feeling groggy but with much less pain. Tonight (Monday) Kevin has felt much better, none of the extreme flashes of pain that had him doubled over yesterday. One week to go before the stent is removed!
Mike,
I remember riding up Old La Honda, must have been about 10 months ago. I was pushing myself, and the entire time about 100 yards back were these two guys chatting. As I huffed and puffed, it became clear they were father and son. At around 2/3rds up they decided to try, and blew by me. I tried to stick with them but couldn’t.
We chatted at the top. It was you and Kevin of course. We hadn’t met. I had bought my Trek at your Redwood city store. (Bought one years ago from Los Altos too.) You went on your way, and I on mine.
I have a nine year old son. On seeing you depart I thought to myself, “What an experience for that dad to share. I hope someday I can ride up here with Thomas.”
Whatever Kevin suffers from, I pray he beats it. Looking forward to hearing you two on my wheel again soon. Thanks for writing.
If it were two guys chatting, hard to believe I would have been one of the two guys… I’m usually gasping for every last molecule of air (is air really a monocule?) I can find!
Don’t worry, Kevin’s kidney thing isn’t something he has to beat, just outlast. We’ve been assured repeatedly that this isn’t something that would cause him to lose a kidney, or that it’s something insidious not-yet-diagnosed. Shortly after next Monday, we’ll know for certain. Within a day or two of having the stent removed, he should be feeling much better, which, trust me, will have the rest of the family feeling much better as well!
It’s been quite a journey these past few years, starting when he was 13 or so and steadily progressing, sometimes slowly, sometimes almost angrily (as in, Dad, remember that Calvin & Hobbes where the dad is telling Calving, “Go do something you hate. It builds character!”? Well Dad, that’s you..), but he kept at it, I kept at it, and he’s come a very long way since that first Delta Century (the 30 mile version of it) where, three or so miles from the end, he wanted to quit. And shortly thereafter the Tour de Peninsula where he was so mad for me having him ride it that he got off his bike and started walking… at one point, downhill!. Those were times where you wondered, or other people suggested, that maybe it wasn’t fair that I expected him to do the same things I did, something he expressed himself from time to time. But y’know, part of being a parent sometimes does require a bit of steering and control now & then, and you just hope that you don’t create a resentment of the sort I felt for competitive swimming when I was pushed too hard (having a 3rd or 4th grader jump into a pool at 6:30am where the heater hadn’t kicked in yet but the chlorine certainly had, and thinking that could somehow be fun???!!! As a result, I no longer associated any sort of water activity as fun for a very, very long time.).
Of course now we’ll be in a rebuilding mode, getting the weight back off him (about 8 pounds since he had to stop riding), clearing the meds out of his system and working on new personal bests up Old LaHonda and Kings Mtn. Oh, and catching up on a whole lot of school work too!
Your son is going to grow up faster than you can imagine. I hope you get to share as many experiences with him, cycling or otherwise, as I have with Kevin. –Mike–