Medical Update

Well, this kind of stuff I wouldn't normally publicize on an open forum like this -- however, many people are going to be asking me the same questions and I really don't think I can tell the story more than a couple times. So long story short -- I have a kidney stone. It started last Friday just after dinner. Justin and I had a nice meal at Panzon's and decided to take a quiet drive out to our land in Linn County; about an hour drive. I was driving my car, and started to feel some pressure in my back. At first, I thought it could just be some sore back pain. Then, I began to think that it was some of the mexican food we ate. By the time we got to the development, I had Justin drop me off at the restroom. Nothing spectacular happened there, but I did feel a little better. We drove to our lot, took a look around, and then started home. I made Justin drive on the way back, as the discomfort was getting progressively worse. We tried stopping at some more restrooms, but that didn't really change anything. By the time we got home, I was really miserable. I thought that just lying down would help, but when my mom saw me, she and Justin agreed that I needed to go to the hospital. Nothing I did would make the pain any better. I kept trying different positions, but it was just a constant burning in my back and side. Plus, I was having bouts of naseau that just made everything worse. While sitting in the ER waiting room, I threw up my dinner, which did help my naseau. They finally got me into a room and started an IV. Once some demerol got into my system I began to feel much better. They wheeled me down to CT and the cat scan showed that it was definitely a kidney stone. The good news -- this is very treatable. The bad news -- it is 7 mm. Keep in mind that by this time it is about 1am Saturday morning. The standard procedure for a kidney stone is to treat the pain with narcotics, drink a lot of fluids, and try to let the body pass it normally. They told me that with the larger size of my stone, that it may not come out by Monday, and if so, I was to follow up with a urologist Monday morning. Most likely, they would try a lithotripsy treatment -- which involves using ultrasound to break up the stone into smaller pieces, so that it can pass more easily. Anyway, by about 3am I was pleasantly drugged up and on my way home. Saturday seems a blur now. The codine was keeping the pain manageable, but I didn't really have a lot of energy for anything. I know I sat around and napped a lot, but don't remember much else. Sunday morning rolled around, and the nausea was back. I couldn't keep the pain medicine down. I couldn't keep any fluids down. Which meant the pain came back in a bad way. We decided to go back to the ER and hope for a hospital admittance. We got to the ER around 11, and by 3ish I think we were in a room. They put me back on demerol with another drug that was supposed to help the nausea, and at least the pain was manageable. They told me that the urologist would contact me Monday morning to schedule some sort of procedure to hopefully fix me up. I have mixed feelings about hospitals. It's nice to be in a place where you can just press a button and get some help, but the smells and the sounds all night are really kind of eery. In the end, I think I prefer to have my remedies at home if at all possible. Plus, the food was really awful. Anyway, Monday morning the doctor came and talked to me. He said he was going to send me to x-ray so he could get a look at where the stone was at this point. He hoped that if it had moved far enough down, he would put me under and try to remove the stone with a cystoscope. If it was still too far up the urethra, they would put in a stint to help relieve the pressure and follow up later with lithotripsy. Around 11:30 Monday I went in for the procedure. I don't even remember being wheeled into the operating room as they had me so drugged up before the anesthesia. Anyway, it turns out the stone hadn't moved very far. So they just put in the stint. Now I am at home. The pain is much less, but there is still some discomfort. They want me to be on antibiotics for a few days to make sure and clean out any possible infections. I should be getting a call from the doctor today to find out next steps. In the meantime, I think I'll go take a nap now.