Sailed into July with thoughts of going to my hometown in Michigan for a few days to celebrate my 25th wedding anniversary, with Tony!
As long as we’ve been married, and living in Indiana, Tony has never been to my hometown of Midland, Michigan! It’s about a five hour drive from here, yet we’ve never been!
Life gets in the way of planned trips over the years. Before you know it, 25 years have flown by, and your spouse has never been to your hometown!
Several years ago, I took the kids up to Michigan and stopped at the house I grew up in. My folks had the house built in 1951 I believe. The owners were gracious enough to let me inside, and go from room to room! I stood in the bedroom of my childhood, the living room, and even the basement! I wandered the backyard, still seeing flower beds my dad so meticulously planted all those years ago. I walked over to the huge pine tree where we buried our 17 year old cat, Thomas Jacob, TJ for short.
It was a wonderful experience to see my home once again. I showed the kids the schools I went to, places I’d worked, parks I’d played in. It had been a great time!
As I mentioned, life gets in the way sometimes, and as such, Tony’s not had the opportunity to go to Midland with me!
So, we thought for our 25th anniversary, we’d pop up to Midland for a couple days and look around.
The day I planned to make hotel reservations, at a new fancy hotel in town, I was struck with the excruciating pain of a kidney stone! This happened to me ten years ago, so I immediately knew what the pain was!
I hope you never experience a kidney stone that too big to get out of your body, but if you do, you’ll know a pain similar to giving birth! For me, it is much worse than childbirth!
So, after a four day hospital stay, in which Tony had his birthday, I finally came home!
As the surgeon had placed a stent, I had to have another surgery to have it removed, along with lithotripsy for the stuck stone! Lithotripsy is a shockwave directed at stubborn, big kidney stones, that is to pulverize them to sand!
Of course when was this scheduled? July 11th. Our 25th wedding anniversary! Of course it was!
So, life once again, got in the way of a partially planned trip to Midland, Michigan! We’re still determined to get there! One of these days!
I’ll never forget how anxious I was to get out of my hometown and experience grown up life! Now Midland is the hip place to live in Michigan! Hopefully I’ll get back there before too long. I’m so excited to show Tony all the places from my childhood!
I suppose the partial moral to this story is that life happens. If you want to go somewhere, do something, see someone, do it when the opportunity presents. Don’t wait for a specific date to celebrate whatever it is you want to do. Kidney stones don’t care about dates on a calendar! They’ll try to kill you any old time they want to!!!
Hopefully I’ll never experience them again! Twice in a lifetime is more than enough! Those of you who have had them can understand!
Enjoy July, it’s slipping by already!