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.


Comments

Michelle said…
It's going to take more than luck, dear. I'm so sorry you ended up with another stone, and pray that it is motivation enough to be stay on the straight and narrow and that doing so prevents any more!
Anonymous said…
So sorry to hear of this latest development. I don't think it's fair that some people have more bad things happen to them than another person. My only solution is daily prayer and follow the advice from my doctors. Ya see, I'm one of those persons who bad things always seem to happen to, too.
My thoughts and prayers are with you, Annie. And I'm hoping that you feel better real soon.
Janice H.

Popular Posts