So, my kidneys are acting up and I'm going to have to get an x-ray as regular doctor thinks there is more going on than just a simple infection. Because they are recurrent. I'm of the mind that I just have to be on antibiotics longer than 2 weeks. Give me 5 weeks and it'll kill those bacteria suckers. They're resistant, what does he expect after all these years of treating them? So an x-ray, but so far no glow in the dark juice and being run through the giant Lifesaver.

Of course, I may be in denial because I really don't want my life turned upside down again by another medical crisis. I am so done with that. I mean, the insurance is relatively decent now, but still...I do not want anymore hospital bills, anymore surgeries, anymore bits of me taken out than have been. True, what's one kidney? Just a spare part anyway, but still, I'm attatched. I've lost enough odds and ends already.

I used to joke that the only things left that they could take out without replacing were a kidney, a spleen and part of my liver. Guess I shouldn't tempt fate that way, should I now?

I mean, I didn't have a clue when they went in for other stuff that they'd find a big honking tumor growing through my appendix, or a year after that my gall bladder would be 90% dead and the remaining 10% diseased. I knew stuff was wrong with the gall bladder because I was turning yellow and couldn't do anything and was having nasty attacks and they noticed it was "a bit odd" during the first surgery but it never occurred to me that it was mostly a dead organ sitting there.

So now with the kidney, I'm either going to be in complete and utter denial or I'm going to go in the opposite direction and completely freak out and think there is a tumor pressing into the kidney and that is the problem. I'm trying to sit here and be numbly in the middle until next week when they take the x-ray.

I'm more worried about what will happen to our financial health if this is serious than I am about myself. Which I recognize as being tweaked but there you go. I'm tweaked. Well, maybe its simply a coping mechanism. My daughter is now the age I was when my mother had cancer. That brings up all sort of issues with my own kids. Or would do if I told them what was going on.

We can't take out another loan, I won't charge anything on a credit card, and I can't visit the bank of MOM because of the fact that she already took out that mortgage for us for the last go around and we'll be paying it off forever and a half. It's probably nothing serious. But...what if it is? What am I going to do?

Sell the house, maybe. Pay off all our debts and the mortgage on our own house, go move back in with mom and work on paying off that mortgage.

Then there's the whole Dad thing. Dad has cataracts, early to middle stage dementia, and MS. Mom's overwhelmed. But coping. If there is one thing my mother can do it is soldier on no matter what. I don't want to make her have to cope with me, too. Not right now.

Well, I'll muddle through, I always do. I will bend, I will not break because that is what I do.

Anyway, probably too much information. But thanks for listening. I needed that.