I went into the hospital thinking I was checking something off a to-do list.

It was a scheduled procedure. Planned. Routine.
A “we’ll get this taken care of and you’ll be home soon” kind of day.

The paperwork read long and intimidating — cystoscopy, left retrograde, pyelogram, ureteroscopy with laser lithotripsy and stent, stone extraction. Words that sound bigger than they feel when you’re signing consent forms in a hospital gown.

It was supposed to fix a kidney stone.
It was not supposed to turn into a week in the ICU.

Somewhere between “routine procedure” and recovery, things shifted.

What started as an obstructing stone became acute obstructive nephrolithiasis complicated by pyelonephritis. Infection took hold fast E. coli bacteremia. My kidneys struggled. My creatinine jumped from my normal 0.9 to 1.37. My liver numbers spiked. My platelets dropped. My lungs filled with fluid from aggressive volume replacement. My muscles broke down from rhabdomyolysis. My heart even showed strain — a Type II myocardial infractions trigged by septic shock.

Septic shock.

2 words you never expect to hear attached to your own name.

1 minute I was groggy from anesthesia. The next, I was in the ICU fighting an infection that had turned dangerous in a matter of hours.

It was not on my calendar.

I don’t remember everything clearly. ICU has a way of blurring time. Machines beeping in rhythms that felt foreign. IV poles multiplied. Oxygen lines. Monitors. Nurses coming in and out adjusting drips and watching numbers.

I do remember the people.

I remember my Mom’s worried voice. That quiet tremble she tried to hide.

I remember my girls — my babies who aren’t babies anymore — constantly checking in. Texts. Calls. “Are you ok?” “What do the doctors say?”

My oldest stayed the night with me, sprawled out on the stiff hospital ‘bed/couch’ like it was the most natural place in the world to be — because being close mattered more than comfort.

I remember my nieces and nephew coming to visit, their faces trying to be brave.

I remember my husband, working over in New Mexico, dropping everything and heading home the moment he heard I was in ICU. Oilfield schedules don’t bend easily, but he did. He showed up.

I remember my sisters — all the way in Wisconsin — calling to check on me. Distance didn’t matter. Voices traveled fast when love is involved.

Marcia, my bonus mom, just needed to hear my voice. Not a text. Not an update from someone else. My voice. To know I was still me.

My Dad… stepping in reminding how precious life is; and then checking in on me after I left the hospital on my way home.

My in-laws, who looked after the girls – taken them to school and work because her parents were unable to. Who prayed every morning before school that I would get better to make it back home to rest and recover.

I also remember the nurses. ICU nurses are a different breed of human. Calm in chaos. Steady hands. Eyes that see everything. And Nurse Chelsea. She didn’t just care for me — she cared about me. She explained things not only to me, but to my daughters when they would FaceTime. She reassured my family. She advocated. On the day I left ICU, she came in on her day off just to work and see that I was transferred out.

You don’t forget that.

When you’ve been scared — really scared — you don’t forget the people who stood steady beside you.

Medically, I learned more in a week than I ever wanted to know.

Septic shock isn’t just “a bad infection.” It’s your body overreacting to infection in a way that can shut down organs. Blood pressure drops. Organs strain. Kidneys falter. The heart works harder. Lungs struggle. The cascade is fast.

Mine started with a kidney stone blocking my ureter. The infection couldn’t drain properly. It spread to my bloodstream. From there, everything escalated.

It sounds clinical when written out.
It felt terrifying when lived.

And yet – in the middle of monitors and IV pumps — I felt something too.

Covered.

So many people told me they had me on their prayer list. Church groups. Friends. Family. Text threads lightning up across states. When you’re lying in a hospital bed with wires attached to you, knowing that your name is being spoken in prayer in living rooms and kitchens and pews — it steadies you.

I wasn’t alone in that ICU room.

Not really.

Being discharged felt surreal. Riding in the car home felt surreal.

My body was weaker. My number were improving but not perfect. My discharge paper read like a medical journal “septic shock due to complicated pyelonephritis, acute kidney injury, elevated LFTs, thrombocytopenia, pulmonary edema, rhabdomyolysis.“

I was wheeled out of the hospital.

Alive.

Recovering.

Grateful.

This wasn’t expected. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t even remotely on my radar.

But if there’s anything a week in ICU teaches you, it’s this:

Life if fragile.
Family is everything.
Forgiveness shouldn’t wait.
And good nurses are angels in scrubs.

I went in to fix a kidney stone.

I came home reminded of how deeply loved I am and how I need to slow down in life.