So, the plan was for Katie and I to run the Susan G. Komen for the Cure 5k in Charlotte today, meaning I would go home last night so I could be fresh as a daisy for the morning run. Except.. that isn’t exactly what happened.

I would like to preface this by saying, that normally other people’s health problems are one of the few off limits topics for my blog. But, since this particular health problem was live tweeted by the patient, I think it is fair game. He has also begged me to blog about his enzyme deficiency, which I haven’t done yet.

Yesterday morning, Carlton asked me where there was an urgent care place for him to go to in Florence, since that is where I used to live. This is how he told me he wasn’t feeling well, rather than, “My abdomen hurts, and I feel like I’m dying.” Luckily, I had yesterday off, so I drove to Florence to make sure he was OK and so I could drive him around in case he was totally incapacitated from pain or medicine.

I missed most of the action, because by the time I got there,  he had barfed at the doctor’s office from pain, gotten some shots and been diagnosed. Kidney Stones! According to the doctor, web sites and my mom who works at a urology clinic, these are very, very painful. I stayed in Florence to drive Carlton around, help him get his prescriptions and make sure things didn’t get worse once the pain medicine wore off. I didn’t want him to be in pain and stranded in a city that he is still relatively new to.

So, needless to say, I didn’t make it to the race in Charlotte, which is about 2 1/2 hrs away.  I feel bad that I didn’t make it, but I think that I made the right choice since even though Carlton ended up being OK through the night, there was no way to know.

Thank you SO SO SO SO SO much to all the people who donated. So, tomorrow, I’m going to run/walk my own 5k. It won’t be a race, but it will be me + running. I’ll try to do it with a smile since this is for a good cause.

And now, I leave you with this image I found on the NIH web site about kidney stones:

The caption said, "Try to catch a stone with a strainer." Public health is awesome.