So t’other night, my boyfriend and love of my life got a kidney stone.

If you’ve never had a kidney stone, count yourself lucky–the pain is generally rated somewhere past childbirth, torture, and slow decapitation. I had to drive him to the ER, while he lay in fetal position in my back seat.

This was not pleasant, needless to say, moreso because we didn’t know for sure it was a kidney stone and I was basically doing seventy down a dark country road in the rain praying “Oh sweet Ganesh, let him not have a burst appendix.”

Up until the drive, I’d been holding it together pretty well. There was the next thing to be done, and the next thing to be done. Get his kids ready to go to their mother’s. Call their mother to take them. Get Kevin down to the car. Etc. Once I got in the car, though, there wasn’t anything to do next but drive, and my brain, which had been very tightly focused, relaxed, and started to fall apart.

“Stop that!” I told myself, feeling the snivelling coming on. “This isn’t productive!”

My brain continued to snivel.

“This is not helping!” I told it.

The brain was unmoved.

“Would Digger do this?” I demanded.

And my brain…shut up. Nope, Digger wouldn’t snivel. Digger would rise to the occasion. Surely I was not to be out done by a figment of my imagination!

As coping mechanisms go, it’s arguably a bit disfunctional, but hey, whatever works.

Kevin is doing well now, resting reasonably comfortably. Stone hasn’t passed yet, but the pain’s nowhere near the double-over-and-vomit range, so he’s much happier.