How A Disney Water Slide Can Lead to a Septic Souvenir

This is a cautionary tale about God's sovereignty and how a Walt Disney World water slide had me on the road to sepsis....

The end of August found us on a trip to Disney with my parents, and the first day there, we visited Typhoon Lagoon. I was looking forward to this for weeks because we had not been back to a water park since Tag was a toddler. He recently started to enjoy going underwater and now loves certain slides. This was something we had waited years to experience together. I knew that there was one slide at this park that I absolutely hated. It's basically non-stop speed bumps. Migraine triggering speed bumps for me. Jordan and I worked out a system where we took turns going on slides with the kids and sitting with Maci. By the time it was my turn to do a few slides, Tag of course picked this specific slide.

I knew it would be uncomfortable, but I wanted to experience it with him. So we waited in line, and when the moment came for me to go down, I realized it was far worse than I remembered. 0/10 for me, but he had a blast, so it was worth it. We went on about our day, then went on about the rest of the trip. I was totally fine, except for being determined to never go down that slide again.

The night we got home, the pain started. I was throwing up and in complete agony. Nothing I did--showers, heating pads, ice, massage--remotely touched the pain. I couldn't stand up straight, and even walking became difficult.

I have a Revolutionary War level of pain tolerance. It's been 13+ years since I've taken any pain medication whatsoever. Nothing for migraines, nothing for childbirth, nothing for monstrous cramps, nothing for the body aches that come with the flu...absolutely nothing. Part of this is because I have OCD. Everything I eat, drink, or take is meticulously thought out and agonized over. There isn't anything I can't tough out. Until this. The pain was worse than childbirth, and I just knew something was wrong. I assumed that the most logical thing was that I had a cyst and it ruptured. Or maybe it was uterine torsion. I let Jordan sleep until around 6 that morning, then woke him up to take me to the hospital.

And it was a good thing I did. The pain was so intense that they had to give me multiple rounds of morphine to keep me on the table and get me lucid. I went from never taking even one Tylenol to needing morphine injections. The doctor on staff was amazing. He ordered nearly every test imaginable because, by all counts I am extremely healthy. Aside from my TBI, I have no other conditions. I eat a well-balanced diet. I work out 5 days a week. I don't take any medications...it just didn't make sense that I went from totally fine to...whatever this was.

Come to find out, with zero risk factors, zero history of this in my parents and grandparents, I had 2 kidney stones that dropped loose and were completely blocking my right kidney. To the point that my kidney was swelling and infected. I was terrified of having to go under anesthesia, but the doctors said that I was on my way to being septic. There wasn't time for any other type of kidney stone treatment due to the severity of the infection.

They had to immediately place a stent and try to remove the stones; otherwise, things would go downhill quickly. They also said if they had to dig around too much to get the stones, it would make me septic. So that was fun to think about. I was at risk either way. Within 2 hours, I was in the OR and prepped for surgery. Jordan has some hilarious stories about me coming out of the anesthesia, but I'll save that for another day. Apparently, I was very thankful to be alive afterward--and I was vocal about it.

All thanks to God, they were able to remove both the stones, so I never even had to pass them. I did have the stent for a couple of weeks and still face some unknowns ahead as to what actually caused this. I was so upset that this just happened out of nowhere, so the surgeon asked me, "Have you been on any water slides or rough rides lately?" He thought I was laughing at him but I was laughing because yes, I had done just that! He told me that while there is a lot of talk about how rides like Big Thunder Mountain HELP people pass kidney stones, water slides can also impact that. These rides can be helpful in some cases but they can also be dangerous if you have a kidney stone in certain positions. In my case these stones could have dissolved or passed on their own. But the force of the slide and the roughness caused them to both fall straight into the opening of my kidney and block it. My kidney had been blocked for over a week, and I had no idea.

What's the point of sharing all this? On paper, I am the healthiest person in my family. Even the kids will agree. I have absolutely no risk factors (lifestyle or medical history) to explain why I had the stones to begin with. You know how I said I haven't had pain meds in 13 years? I also haven't had a drop of soda, coffee, or tea in 13 years. I haven't had alcohol in even more years than that. I'm not perfect, but I am meticulous about what goes into my body, with the occasional blue Slurpee being allowed to slip through. On paper, I make the right choices. Yet this still happened.

God's sovereignty wins every single time. He already knew this was going to happen, and He put all the right people in the right place at the right time to care for me. Not one need went unmet. Every outcome was the best we could have hoped for. When I make choices about what I eat or drink or what meds I take, so much of that is driven by my anxiety and OCD. Yet in the chaos of me losing what control I thought I had of my body and facing some of my worst fears, ("sepsis" is truly terrifying to hear a doctor say) I had complete and indescribable peace. This isn't to discourage anyone from making those "right" choices; it's simply to know that we will still end up wherever God intends for us to.

It's kind of ironic, but OCD can cause more chaos than people realize. It leads me to struggle with control over my own thoughts and sometimes actions as well. It's exhausting to have that internal battle happening day in a day out for control. I've found through this experience that it's unnaturally comforting to lose control like this. It became more evident to me than ever that no matter how tightly we hold the reins, God holds us. Being able to depend on that, and not my own actions, is where I finally find rest.