Sucks to be Me at the Moment . . .
So . . . um . . . last Sunday I told you about the kidney infection. There is more to the story.
Because I thought I had another stone, they did a CT scan and saw a 6mm stone just hanging out in my left kidney.
This was not good. I know I wasn't able to maintain my compliance of more water and less salt, but that's a pretty big stone. The entire episode was frightening for me. And, unfortunately it wasn't over.
I finished the antibiotic from the kidney infection on Wednesday night. I felt crappy the entire week I had to take it. I put it down to side effects from the antibiotic . . .
But no. On Thursday on my way home on the train, the pain started up again and it got progressively worse. Thankfully Linda the Chicken Lady was visiting me - but instead of having a nice dinner together, she had to take me to the ER again, where I learned that the 6mm kidney stone that was just hanging out in my kidney last week was actually a 7mm stone and it had decided to go walkabout into my ureter. If you recall, about a year and a half ago, I couldn't pass what was a 3-4mm stone - there was no way I was going to pass one that was 7mm.
I spent a difficult night in the hospital. I'm allergic to codeine, morphine, and tramadol, which makes it challenging to control my pain. Kidney stone pain is the worst. On that scale of 1-10, it's about a 45. The ER doc explained that my pain was visceral pain, not somatic pain. My internal organs were hurting.
In the morning I was told that my surgery would be that afternoon. At 4 o'clock. I wondered how I would last that long . . . the internist on the floor said he would see if he could get the urology team to move me up. I didn't think it would work, but I set the intention that I would move to the front of the line and then prayed about it. And the next thing I knew they were going to take me down to surgery - there was an opening in the surgical schedule and they moved me up the timeline. I got to come home that same evening.
I have a stent that will come out on Thursday and I'm hopeful to go back to work on Friday. In the meantime, however, I still don't feel all that great. They skinned/scraped my throat with whatever intubating they did for my general anesthesia, so that's been a little bothersome. The stent is not particularly painful, but it is uncomfortable and I have been peeing blood since Friday. It's lessening now, though, so that's good news.
I don't understand why these crazy things keep happening in my life. I don't know what they mean. And I hope they stop. I rolled the dice and lost with this kidney stone, but I'm not doing that again. I'm going to find a way to be more compliant with the less salt/more water regime.
Wish me luck.
Because I thought I had another stone, they did a CT scan and saw a 6mm stone just hanging out in my left kidney.
This was not good. I know I wasn't able to maintain my compliance of more water and less salt, but that's a pretty big stone. The entire episode was frightening for me. And, unfortunately it wasn't over.
I finished the antibiotic from the kidney infection on Wednesday night. I felt crappy the entire week I had to take it. I put it down to side effects from the antibiotic . . .
But no. On Thursday on my way home on the train, the pain started up again and it got progressively worse. Thankfully Linda the Chicken Lady was visiting me - but instead of having a nice dinner together, she had to take me to the ER again, where I learned that the 6mm kidney stone that was just hanging out in my kidney last week was actually a 7mm stone and it had decided to go walkabout into my ureter. If you recall, about a year and a half ago, I couldn't pass what was a 3-4mm stone - there was no way I was going to pass one that was 7mm.
I spent a difficult night in the hospital. I'm allergic to codeine, morphine, and tramadol, which makes it challenging to control my pain. Kidney stone pain is the worst. On that scale of 1-10, it's about a 45. The ER doc explained that my pain was visceral pain, not somatic pain. My internal organs were hurting.
In the morning I was told that my surgery would be that afternoon. At 4 o'clock. I wondered how I would last that long . . . the internist on the floor said he would see if he could get the urology team to move me up. I didn't think it would work, but I set the intention that I would move to the front of the line and then prayed about it. And the next thing I knew they were going to take me down to surgery - there was an opening in the surgical schedule and they moved me up the timeline. I got to come home that same evening.
I have a stent that will come out on Thursday and I'm hopeful to go back to work on Friday. In the meantime, however, I still don't feel all that great. They skinned/scraped my throat with whatever intubating they did for my general anesthesia, so that's been a little bothersome. The stent is not particularly painful, but it is uncomfortable and I have been peeing blood since Friday. It's lessening now, though, so that's good news.
I don't understand why these crazy things keep happening in my life. I don't know what they mean. And I hope they stop. I rolled the dice and lost with this kidney stone, but I'm not doing that again. I'm going to find a way to be more compliant with the less salt/more water regime.
Wish me luck.
Comments
My thoughts and prayers are with you, Annie. And I'm hoping that you feel better real soon.
Janice H.