That was me. In the middle of one of the busiest weekends I've had in years I started getting intense pains and nausea. I toughed it out for a bit but we eventually marched off to the ER and 6 hours later came out with the diagnoses of kidney stones. Thankfully the pain had stopped just before we left so I didn't have to sit in pain for those 6 hours.
I have to say though, I will never poo-poo kidney stones again. I had thought that, compared to giving birth, it couldn't be too bad. Wrong. While I wouldn't say the pain is worse it's constant, unrelenting and there's no cute baby at the end of the ordeal.
But the weekend was actually a very good one overall. The absolute highlight was in church on Sunday. Catherine was with the Sunday school when one of our ministers asked her if she'd like to read. Uh oh. Catherine can read and her reading is getting better all the time but it is a little behind and she does need some time to sort the words out. But to my surprise she said yes. Yes to reading a passage she'd never seen in front of the whole congregation. I went up to give her a hand and though it was a little slow and clumsy she pushed through the reading without ever getting flustered or frustrated. When she was finished she sat down with a smile.
I was in awe of her. This was the first time she'd ever done something in front of a crowd. She was being asked to do something she wasn't strong in. She struggled through mispronunciation and previously unknown words to produce a reading that was pretty shaky. And through it all she was confident and happy, never letting it occur to herself that she should be upset, embarrassed or that she might have failed. That's not to say that she didn't know she didn't do a great job at the reading but she didn't let that haunt her. When she stepped down, she had a very realistic view of her performance but simply got on with the day.
It was awesome to see a little girl with such a firm and unshakable sense of herself.
And even better? My husband was there to see it. It was the day of the Christmas Pageant and there was no way he was going to let a little unbelief get in the way of seeing his kids dressed up and singing carols. He'll be there on Christmas Eve as well. Catherine was asked to read then as well but this time she'll be getting her reading ahead of time so she'll be able to practice. I can't wait.
2 comments:
Boy, Catherine will already have such a huge advantage over her peers if she can keep that up.
Thanks for sharing that story. It gave me hope for our own son who dreads being in front of people.
Holy cow, kidney stones?! That's horrible! I'm glad you made it through that ok. Do they do anything for that besides just let them pass? Is there something that causes it or medication to keep from having them again? Just.. yeowtch. I'm sorry.
And Catherine reading in front of everyone. Awesome for her! Cadence is content reading for anyone, even though I'm a bit nervous for her. I think all that public schooling *I* had has made me paranoid of looking foolish in front of people, but she's confident. Good for Catherine! I think that's wonderful.
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