This, too, shall pass

Remember that one time when I went to the doctor with excruciating pain in my side and it was diagnosed as a misplaced rib? Yeah, me too. I need to apologize to the crazy chripractor for thinking he was a quack because my pain wasn't going away.

Last night, I was watching Hoarders and folding laundry when the same pain I had last month came back. This time, it came on more quickly and with a vengeance. I couldn't tell if I was going to throw up, had busted an organ or just had gas. Honestly, it was the worst pain I'd ever had in my life and after about an hour of dealing with it I decided I needed to go to the ER. My one fear was that it would be gas and I'd never live it down for going to the ER for bad gas, but the amount of pain convinced me that I just didn't care at that point and that I needed drugs and I needed them ASAP. It's a good thing that Rob knows how to drive fast and that the ER is just down the street because I just couldn't take it anymore.

Of course, we get to the ER and the lady at the check-in desk tells us it will be "just a minute" before someone can see me, and maybe it really was "just a minute" but it seemed like an eternity. Because of the instantaneous and strong urges I was getting that I was going to lose the contents of my bladder, bowels and stomach right on the spot I practically bowled over some people looking at the fish tank in order to get to the bathroom. And of course, it was locked when I got there. Don't tell anyone, but I said "dammit" out loud. I was saying that and a lot of other words under my breath... don't tell anyone about that, either. Rob came to my rescue and watched the men's room while I was in there not losing the contents of anything. That was what really wierded me out. I felt all of these things, but nothing was happening.

Finally, the triage nurse called me back and triaged me. I think breathing shallowly and grimacing really helped her decide that I would be next to go back to the ER. It also could have been the fact that my pulse was 103 and my blood pressure was like 154/98. Because I was really making a scene, they let me lay down in a room off of the waiting room. Again, I feel that making a scene really helped get me back faster. Except I wasn't trying to be obnoxious. I started bawling because the pain was just so intense and it was spreading and then I started barfing up everything. I seriously felt it in my toes. Apparently the barfing was the clincher for getting me back to the ER right away because a nurse came back and asked me if I'd ever had kidney stones before. Kidney stones were the farthest thing from my mind because I thought my kidneys were in the back and my pain was in the front, but I decided to just go with it if it would get me some meds quicker.

Going back to the ER brought the same comments from the doctor and nurse back there. They just needed to draw some blood, get a urine sample, and do a CT scan to diagnose it for sure. Easy breezy, right? Wrong. I couldn't pee, I was so dehydrated that the nurse couldn't find a vein and I haven't exactly been diligent at taking my birth control pills at the same time every day so a CT scan was out of the question until I could produce a negative pregnancy test. Hard to do without pee or blood. Finally, the nurse found a vein, but couldn't get any blood from it so they hooked me up to an IV of saline to try and hydrate me so that they could draw blood. That process took like 2 1/2 hours. Once my results came back, they wheeled me down to CT scan and let me tell you, that's a little scary. It's loud and there are radioactive warnings everywhere and a note that says "don't look directly into the light." I just kept my eyes shut and waited for it to be over.

After what seemed like an eternity, the nurse came to the room and said "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but you have a huge kidney stone. It's 6mm, which is really big as far as kidney stones go." Then the doctor came back and confirmed it and said I would most likely need surgery in the next few days. I was like "um, no." Thankfully, the nurse came back in and said that the stone was in my left ureter and was only about 1/2 inch away from dropping into the bladder and that once that happened it should pass pretty quickly. Her advice was to wait about 5 days and see if it passes on its own. If not, call the doctor and see if surgery is needed. I'm really hoping it passes on its own.

In the mean time, I've been given a prescription for Percocet, which, let me tell ya, knocks my socks off. The nurse told me to not try and be a martyr about the pain, but I hate that buzzed feeling. I hate pain even more, so Imight be buzzed for a while until this thing passes. I've heard it said that the pain from kidney stones in comparable to child birth and now I believe it. My decision is made - I will be getting epidurals for childbirth.

So, sorry, Dr. Harris. Maybe you're not a quack since you couldn't cure my rib pain, but I still think you're wierd.