Pt 2: Christmas Day

 So after the hap, hap, happiest Christmas Eve in the world, we awoke Christmas Day morning ready for tons of F.F.F. (Forced Family Fun). All four children were dragged out of bed and tossed into coats and boots for the early a.m. trip to Oma & Poppa's for breakfast and presents. When Hannah awoke (with her hair trapped in the bend of Eli's elbow) she was complaining that she had an owie, and she kept grabbing her hip. We babied her by carrying her from place to place and hoping that it was just a bad charlie horse. But she did look oh so pathetic when she tried to walk holding her hip and dragging her leg behind her.

Shortly after we arrived, who do you think came up the walk? Santa! The rest was a blur of yummy dishes, a flurry of wrapping paper scraps and more presents than you can imagine. We had our first ever Cousins Christmas Concert. [Oma is teaching all of the cousins piano, and Christmas morning was their first ever recital.] It went VERY well. Somewhere in the middle of the adult's white elephant gift exchange, John disappeared. We all kept calling for him, and I was pretty sure he was in the bathroom as he had been there many times before, but he wasn't telling me what was up.

As soon as we finished presents, he called me upstairs to the bathroom he was in. I found him slumped over on the ground writhing in pain. He said, "I need to go to the emergency room." That's when my terror began. My husband NEVER wants to go to the emergency room. It was all quite a bit of deja vu from the second kidney stone experience; however, he kept saying this doesn't feel the same; it's not a kidney stone. I rushed downstairs to make some preparations: Cori....can you be point man for the kids? Mom...can I borrow a car so I can leave the minivan for the kids to ride in? Then back upstairs to get him. John couldn't stand upright so he just sorta crawled/rolled down the stairs. My mom kept saying, "We should call an ambulance." But I really didn't want to incur the cost of an ambulance when I was pretty sure I could get him to the hospital. Everyone kept saying go to that new hospital in Franklin....it's so close! So we headed south on 27th to the new one. On the way there I started to cry. The sounds of John's screams and his writhing around was really getting to me. It is very hard to see someone you love in that much pain, but even harder when you see someone who is typically so strong and tough whimpering and crying.

As we pulled into the hospital, I got this TERRIBLE feeling in my gut as I realized I was 99% sure that Wheaton Franciscan facilities were NOT covered under our insurance. By that time, however, it was WAY too late to go anywhere else. He had hardly made it the 5 miles to this place. He would have NEVER made it the nearly 10 to St. Luke's. So trying not to freak out about the fact that we would most likely be paying this visit completely out of pocket, I pulled up to the ER door and stopped. I ran for a wheelchair as John tumbled out of the car onto his hands and knees. My brother-in-law had followed us there so he helped me load John into the wheelchair and then he parked the vehicles. The hospital personnel rushed out as soon as we entered the waiting room, and they whisked him back. I went to check on Shawn and get the keys from him, and then went back to the room they put John in. He was still writhing and screaming. I was trying to help give the doctor (who was NOT a nice man) his health history and the symptoms he was having and trying not to cry because I was really scared. The thought did flicker through my head, "Ohmigosh! What if he dies on Christmas Day?" But I pushed that thought away as fast as I could. I was holding his hand and whispering prayers in his ear. Within a little while, they had him on an IV and finally on some morphine and anti-nausea medicine. As the pain subsided, we fell back into the calm routine we had practiced a couple of times earlier this year: turn on the t.v.; notify the fam we are ok and the pain is being managed; start to joke about how in the heck we're going to pay for this out-of network visit (we have NO coverage out-of-network). After a little under 2 hours, we got the news: 2 mm kidney stone, almost to the opening of the bladder. Here's some Flomax, Percoset and 2 different anti-nausea medicines. Contact your urologist ASAP. So we headed out of the hospital. Our Christmas lunch plans at my mother-in-laws ruined. We started altering our plans for the day. Dropped the prescriptions at Walgreen's and returned home to the children who were very glad to see their daddy walking again.

It seems if your last name is Kastner there always has to be drama. I left the kids (except for Hannah) at my parents with John and headed home for a quick shower. Pulling into the driveway (which had not yet been shoveled from the snow we got on Christmas Eve....to find out why refer to Pt 1: Christmas Eve) I realized my mistake a little too late. I was stuck in the snow. I hopped out of the van still in my pjs from Christmas breakfast and proceeded to shovel myself out of the driveway. By the time I made it into the house with Hannah in my arms, she was whining and crying again about her hip hurting. So I let her go first and put her in a hot bath followed by some ibuprofen. The hot water seemed to loosen up her cramp a little and the ibuprofen made her limp less. I jumped in the shower and finished to find texts and missed calls and AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Christmas dinner was in 15 minutes!

Hannah and I got back to my mom's after dinner had already started. We ate a little and then watched the final version of the Cousins Christmas Concert (complete with a LAME re-enactment of Do You Hear What I Hear by the (now completely adult) children of Kathi Haugh. [Isn't Forced Family Fun great????] As we lounged around nearly comatose from our stressful and exhausting day, I realized that I had only had one cup of coffee all day and I still had to make it through a trip to my mother-in-laws. Well Dad only had cold coffee I could microwave to offer (I can't do that microwaved coffee thing). As we drove to my mother-in-laws it was seriously like the end of the world. Not a THING was open. Every single store we passed (except Hooters of course) had no lights on inside. I couldn't find a cup of coffee to save my life. And to make matters better, my mother-in-law only has decaf... so there was no relief there.

We arrived at Gramma Joan's and spent a little time there. The whole time I was sure I would pass out from exhaustion. The exhausting trip going to pull up the van then carrying Hannah while John was leaning on me across the ice to the car was successfully completed and we were finally on our way home.

Once home we just collapsed on the couch hardly moving and vegged out to a House marathon....

This Christmas was one of the most eventful and NOT storybook I have ever in my life had; however, it was not less magnificent than any of the others. As I sat there exhausted and ready to collapse, I realized that I still had this odd sense of contentment and happiness. In spite of everything, I felt blessed to have beautiful, sweet, kind children who were spoiled to the gills with great Christmas presents. I praised God that it was just another kidney stone, and that I came home with my slightly ailing husband, instead of having to leave him at the hospital (or worse). I realized that even when Christmas doesn't go according to the images we keep in our head, it is still Christmas. It is still a blessed time to remember the things that are most important, family, friends, and most of all a savior who came to earth as a child to make a way for us to all go to Heaven. That's what Christmas is about...whether it includes hospital visits and snowy driveways or perfectly sung carols around a cozy fire.

Pt 1: Christmas Eve (NOT for faint of heart or weak of stomach)

 Ok.... so consider yourself warned, this blog contains some graphic stuff.

It has been an odd Christmas for the Kastners.....not necessarily TERRIBLE... just not the picture perfect kinda stuff you imagine. This first part of the craziness happened on Christmas Eve.....

I awoke on Christmas Eve to tons of snow coming down. This was not really a welcome sight for me because I had a rare and treasured hair appointment scheduled. As the mother of 4 who homeschools, works from home, and organizes a youth ministry, I don't often get time for frivolous things such as haircuts. My hubby got me a giftcard to the beauty school and demanded I use it BEFORE Christmas. Well.... it was snowing so I called the beauty school... yups they were staying open. Hooray! So I got to work on the mountain of laundry and way too many Christmas gifts still to make so I could get some done before my appointment.

I was not too thrilled with my spoiling hubby because the night before he stayed out too late after work with some of the guys he works with. Now I'm not one to begrudge him some recreational time; HOWEVER, we are not younguns and 3 a.m. is just a bit too late for a 42-year old. Especially one who works 2 full-time jobs and gets absolutely no sleep. Not to mention for about 2 days we had been suspecting that he might be about to pass another kidney stone.

So he was already on his first "nap" of the day at 10:30... the time I needed to leave. I asked him if I should cancel my appointment but he assured me he'd be fine to watch the kids. I wasn't convinced. I headed out for a little pampering, stopping along the way to get some Starbucks (compliments of my gift card from Elise).... well I guess because I have not had my hair professionally colored in at least 15 years, I didn't realize that I would be sitting in that chair for 3 1/2 hours by the time I was done having my hair cut and colored and my eyebrows waxed. My butt hurt. I was bored. I had TONS to do at home, and I was wasting time in this pampering chair of torture. Oh, and I was NOT at ALL confident that John was watching the kids at all. The texts I was receiving from home were alarming me, and then I got confirmation.... Sarah and Elise stopped over and then stayed to watch the kids as John was on his second nap of the day. You are an OLD man! You cannot go out with the guys after work! Not when work ends at midnight!!!!

So my hair turned out great but not my eyebrows (bald patch in one spot, stray hairs left behind in another) and she was NOT the best Vici student I have ever had. She did NOT do that cool scalp massage thing they are supposed to do when they wash your hair, and she did a CRAPPY job of styling my hair. Whatevs... the color is what I wanted (actually better than I had imagined) and the cut is GREAT so I'll deal.

So I rushed through Pick N Save now opting for a quick warm and heat dinner instead of a fancy homemade slow cooked one. I returned home to a GLORIOUSLY cleaned home. I was expecting to meet total chaos, but Sarah and Elise had been busy little beavers and my house looked great! Turns out they used cleaning as an escape mechanism to get away from my children who were behaving TERRIBLY. Whatever you have to do man, my house is clean!

I bought the kids some plain gingerbread men at the bakery for them to decorate, but then I knocked them off the stove and they had to instead start with surgery to reattach all the gingerbread amputations and even one decapitation. Whatever the more frosting to reattach a limb the better that gingerbread tastes!

Finally, I returned to burning my homemade DVD's and printing out the family calendars that it is my tradition to make for Christmas. Noah and Jeremiah warmed dinner while I did this. I was trying VERY hard to work quickly. My goal was to be in bed before midnight. Well midnight came and went and I was still up. The later it got the worse it got.... (here's where it starts to get graphic so zone out if you are squeamish) I finally gave up my day long search for Hannah's missing party shoe because I needed to search for my niece's missing present. When Hannah went through her present opening frenzy, we hid all the presents. Well Alyssa's AWANA bag got hidden too well (in fact it STILL hasn't turned up). Finally at about 12:30 I decided I had to get to bed, when I realized I didn't print out the stuff for Do You Hear What I Hear? I quickly printed the required materials. I had already thrown my jeans down the stairs cuz they were dirty. So now I was working in just my underwear and a t-shirt (this is an essential fact for this story.... I promise).... After printing the materials I needed, I went to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair to sit at the table and write a few things down. As my butt hit the chair (remember I'm only wearing underwear) I realized there was a puddle on the chair. (Last warning if you are squeamish turn back NOW!) As I jumped back to my feet all sorts of random facts started flying into my mind.... weren't those Hannah's underwear under the chair? wait didn't she disrobe for a naked run just before bed? puddle... what is this a puddle of? without thinking enough, I stuck my finger into the puddle and put the finger to my nose to smell.... YUPS you've I'm sure deduced it already: PEE! I sat (wearing only my underwear) in a puddle of Hannah's pee! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I cannot BEGIN to describe to you my revulsion as I stood there with my daughter's pee running down my leg and my own underpants soaked exactly as if I were the one who had peed my pants. I wanted to scream and cry... this is CHRISTMAS! I'm supposed to be in bed dreaming of sugar plum fairies not standing in my kitchen, exhausted from hours of making and searching for presents, with my daughter's pee running down my leg. This is NOT Merry!

I felt like I was in Christmas Vacation 2.... I wanted to shout: Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny flipping Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white butt down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of idiots this side of the nuthouse. (Clark Griswold...Christmas Vacation.... yes I did change some of the text to make it PG enough for this blog)

But I wasn't. This was my real life and I had a choice to make.... so I chose to do what the mom has to do... I started laughing.... then I went upstairs to share my hysterical story with my already half asleep husband.... then I planned to blog this humiliating, disgusting story for all of your enjoyment, because it fits perfectly into my world view: if I must suffer through something hopefully at least someone else will get some joy out of it.... a good laugh, a little encouragement, or at least a "WOW! am I glad I didn't sit in a puddle of pee wearing only my underwear on Christmas Eve night!"

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night....stay tuned for more Christmas Day excitement.