My "Rolling Stone"

To make it a LOT easier on me, I'm copying and pasting the email I wrote to my family:

TMI warning- if you don't want the details, then...stop reading now! Seriously- I am putting it ALL out there, and so it's pretty graphic. Just so you know.



Thursday, May 27th, 2010


Just wanted to let you know that I ended up in the E.R. this morning at about 8:30 right after Benji took the kids to school. I originally just felt like I had to go to the bathroom, but during that time, my kidney on my left side started to hurt. I thought maybe an infection, so I tried to bear it. I ended up with loose stools, even though it felt like I was constipated. (sorry for all the info). Then, very quickly, I felt nauseous and I first thought I caught Koby's stomach flu. Then my body started hurting horribly, and there was nothing I did that eased the pain. Every way I turned, I couldn't get comfortable. I couldn't ease the pain. Benji ran me a HOT bath, and it felt really good, but it kept hurting. By this time I had to throw up a few times because the pain was so intense. I begged for Benji to take me to the E.R., and I'm glad I did.






They knew right when I came in what the problem was, and immediately gave me an I.V. and some pain medicine. They had to try 3 times to get an I.V. in me in different locations. It didn't completely stop the pain, and I was still very uncomfortable. I felt very nauseous still and didn't know whether I had to throw up or go to the bathroom. After a little bit they moved on to morphine and it helped so much better than the other stuff they used at first. But the morphine made me sick to my stomach, even though they gave me phenergan, an anti-nausea medicine. It sucked, and it felt like I was about to pass out (that hot-chill feeling you get right before you faint), and I came close to throwing up multiple times. Well, I did my best to get it together (my pain threshold is pretty much non-existant, so for ME, it was hard to do!) and try to let the morphine do it's job.






They took me to radiology at this point and took a CT scan. They found one stone in "active duty", which was the one causing me all the pain, and another two "dormant", just sitting in my kidney. I was told that there's nothing you can do for a kidney stone, except wait it out for the stone to pass. I figured as much, but it's still very hard hearing that when your pain is so intense.






After the morphine "wore off", they helped me to the bathroom. The movement hurt all over again, and I went back to bed in more horrible pain. They gave me another dose of Morphine, and this time it worked like a charm! It totally masked the pain and I was able to sleep- a lot. It was SO nice to FINALLY have some relief after a few hours of constant pain. I slept most of the time I was there, and this time when the morphine wore off, I went to the bathroom again and my side didn't hurt, but my back felt like it does when you get gas up in your back. It hurt, but I could handle it. The nurses told me they suspect the stone probably had moved into the bladder at that point. I went back to bed, slept a little more, and this time when I woke up, I felt MUCH better. So much so, that I was able to finally eat something. After lunch, I heard the nurses prepping other people who had come into the E.R., and figured that I felt good enough to go home and make way for sicker people. They gave me a prescription for percoset and told me to take it with 800mg Ibuprofen if the other kidney stones started to "activate" and move around. They also sent me home with a bed pan and a bunch of "strainers" to pee in to catch the stone in. I need to take it to the lab for testing.


Anyway, as of right now I feel fine. Just extremely tired from the morphine, and I feel a little like I have a bad urine infection, but I'm almost positive it's probably just the stone on it's way out of the bladder, which doesn't hurt NEAR as much as when it's in your kidney!


So, anyway. yeah. Fun day today. But the reason I wanted to send this to you is to talk about the symptoms I was experiencing. I didn't have a CLUE what was going on with me at the time, I felt like I was gonna die, and it was very frightening. At first Benji was suggesting that it was just due to constipation, or that I probably just caught the stomach flu from Koby (who puked all night last night), but I knew it was something more. So- pay CLOSE attention if you ever have a "stiff/sore" kidney! It could be more than "just another UTI".

Okay, so fast forward to today, Memorial Day. It's been almost 5 days since it happened, and I'm still not 100%. To my knowledge, I haven't passed the stone. Add to this, my wonderful Aunt Flo visits on Friday, making it super painful, complete with migrane. So off and on over the past (almost) 5 days, I've been extremely bloated, cramping, major heartburn, and then the overall mental mindframe of being scared crapless to leave the house for fear the other stones will move at any moment, and I won't be near a hospital (so they can give me more Morphine). Anyway, right this moment I'm having some discomfort on my right kidney area, so of course I'm freaking out, but am going to lie down and rest and see if it will go away. I am also scared to take any pain medicine, for fear it will further upset my already raging heartburn, and I'm also freaked out with anything I try to eat or drink, for fear THAT will make my situation worse. Anyway. I would appreciate any small prayer this way if you can spare it. I'm not dire or anything, but there is SO much going on, and I really can't afford to take it easy right now. :p
 
On a fun note, my parents came up to Panguitch today to spend the holiday with us! Benji had to work, but I took them out past Bryce Canyon to a very small hike to the "Mossy Cave". Pics will follow when I feel up to it. The kids, of course, were fighting like cats and dogs, so I'm sure mom and dad loved that, lol. But the waterfall was beautiful. :)
 
ANYway. :) Just a small update. I haven't even felt up to spending more than 2 minutes on FB, so that should tell you right there how rotten I've been feeling. LOL!
 
Hope everyone has a fun, safe weekend! :)