It's been one month since my last post. Some of you know what's been going on.....others may not. Yesterday I had a fever of 101.2 and I was sick in bed all day. Today I'm feeling better, so I thought I'd post and catch up. It's been 10 days since I had my lithotripsy shock wave surgery. That means it's been 10 days that I've been living with a ureteral stent (pic above showing plastic tube that goes from my kidney to my bladder, wire taped to side of my leg---feels like I'm walking around with a catheter in, I know, nice). My second surgery will be sometime this coming week. They think Thursday----we'll see. I'll have to keep the stent in for probably a week after that----so we're looking at three weeks with this thing---and that is of course, if I don't have to have a third surgery. Good news, well maybe not exactly good, but worth saying that after I talked to my doctor, he gave me a prescription to help me with the stent and I've been getting around better now. I can even lay on my side sometimes. I'll also be able to leave my house this week for the first time, now that I can walk a little better. That is, unless I get another high fever accompanied with excruciating pain in my lower back from the kidney stone. As you can see, I took the pleasure of posting a picture of kidney stones. Of course, I don't know what kind of stones I have now----but just look at those things. They look EVIL. Oh, and I also thought it would be fun to show everyone the picture of my sulfa-allergy rash----that covered EVERY inch, and I mean every inch of my body. It's good to look back so that you can remember how good life is when you're healthy. This year I took really good care of myself and got into shape training for a half-marathon. I never would have imagined that I would have had such a hard year with my health. BUT, like I said, if we never knew the bad, we would not know the good. In life, there is opposition in all things. And this too shall pass. In case this post needed some comic relief, I included some updated pics below of the kids.