I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE TODAY

About two hours ago I got a terrible pain in my lower back--the kidneys, I think. Then it hit my stomach. I started to perspire--a river of sweat. Honestly it was. A river. I felt like I was going to throw up. The pain intensified. I had never felt anything like it. I was frightened.

I asked Phil what kidney stones were like.

"Well, I got a terrible pain, felt like I was going to throw up and I perspired. It felt like my back was breaking."

I paced the floor and worried. I took my pants off, even the waistband was too much pressure on my back. Then I got cold and huddled under a blanket in the recliner and when Minkey came to sit on my lap I didn't shoo him away. I was nearly incoherent with the pain and the cold and the fear and a cat didn't even register on my annoyance monitor.

I wish I could have time to tell my children I love them and tell them why I think they are wonderful, I thought. I wish I could tell their spouses how much I love them, too. I wish I could see the grandchildren grow up but I wasn't going to be able to do that. I was dying.

I was in too much pain to even pray. I should have asked Phil for a blessing. But I'd have had to put pants on; it seems irreverent to have a blessing with no pants on.

So I sat and feared and shivered and thought of all the things I had eaten that might be poison and might be killing me. The only thing I could think of--that Phil hadn't eaten too--was a seafood egg roll. Maybe it had some of that poison Puffer fish guts in it. It seemed silly to die from a seafood egg roll with Puffer fish guts in it but we all have to die from something and at least it would be amusing to tell at my funeral. That is if the autopsy could pin down the cause of my death but since Utah Valley Regional Medical Center doesn't have a Dr. House... or a Ducky... I figured my death might remain a mystery.

And then I wondered why I didn't clean house today. People would be in and out, giving Phil condolences and bringing him something to eat, maybe a pie or a casserole and the thought of a pie or a casserole sent me to the bathroom to hang over the toilet, hoping to throw-up and not die there instead. Who wants, "died with her head in the toilet," on her obituary? But then again, obituaries are usually so boring, someone might read mine and call to the other room, "Say Kim, it says here that Lynne died with her head in the toilet. Those Mormon's are a strange bunch."

And then I felt bad that I didn't get any of the books finished that I started. Not the reading ones, the writing ones. I'm the only one who knows how they end. And not that anyone even cares but I have one grandchild who would. She is a story-hound and I remembered I had never finished the epic story I have been telling her in instalments. I promised her another chapter the next time we were sitting on the lawn swings. There wasn't going to be another chapter because I was dying.

And then I looked at my fingernails and my polish is ragged and needs re-doing and I hated to die with ragged fingernails but I simply couldn't give my self a pedicure while I was dying.

And then...the pain started to go away. And in about a half hour it was gone, leaving behind only tenderness and damp clothing and pantless legs. And then I remembered that the Augmentum I have been taking causes nausea and that I threw up the first time I took it, a week ago. And I realized it was poisoning, not only the bacteria in my body--the good bacteria and the bad--but was poisoning my very body.

I resolved that I would call Dr. Jessica, who is a mom and a hair stylist and does a mean job of making teen age girls look like road kill for Halloween with her great talent for imitation scars and wounds. Dr Jessica is systematically educating herself on how to cure illness with natural remedies instead of drugs. She has even decided that some things are not to be eaten, like sugar and white flour. Imagine that? Maybe egg rolls are on the list. Certainly Puffer fish guts are. Yes, the next time I had an ailment I would call Dr. Jessica because this dying stuff is for the birds.

So, tonight I am thankful that I'm not dead. Yet. And I hope you are thankful that I'm not dead, too. Because if I were, I might be visiting, and then you would be freaked out in a major way so perhaps you might pray for my good health for a l-o-n-g time.

And call Dr. Jessica, yourself, if someday you think you are dying.