From the beginning....

Sunday I had to work--no suprise there. I had some lower abdomen crampiness, and took Tylenol and advil all day. I felt better Sunday night, so I didn't think much about it. At 1:34am Monday morning I woke up with my right back and side hurting, and it was radiating to my groin. By 2:00am I was pacing around the bathroom crying. I thought I had a kidney stone. Jared got me some Tylenol, and by 2:30am I felt a little better, but the pain was still there. He had called his parents to come over to stay with porter, but I ended up not going to the hospital. So the rest of the night I just laid around and actually dosed off about 4:30am, but my alarm goes off at 5:00. So I got up and showered and got ready for work---pain still there, but not as bad as 2:00am. I took more advil, but no help. When I got to work I got one of the CRNAs to give me a shot of toradol (potent NSAID---like advil but really strong) because I had a big case with our new chairman of surgery, and I didn't want to wimp out. The case started at 8:00, and the toradol was gone by about 10:00, and the pain was back same as it had been. So during the case I was pressing on my abdomen and back, and got worried because I was also hurting on my right upper quadrant where you would be tender from your gallbladder, so then I wasn't convinced on the kidney stone idea. I wasn't convinced anyway because I wasn't hurting really really bad like you hear people talk about, and I didn't want to look like a wuss and go to the ER and have nothing wrong with me. Our case was 5 1/2 hours, so I got out at 1:30pm and was still hurting, and it was getting a little worse. So I went ahead over to the ER and told them I thought I had a kidney stone. So they checked me in and did all the kidney stone stuff----made me pee in a cup (which looked like dark sweet tea), started an iv and fluids, and took me to get a CT scan. So right after I got the scan the tech said it's a big one, and you've got a dilated ureter. I went around the little glass and looked at it and was floored. It looked huge, and was blocking my ureter so much that it was dilated and filled up with pee pee that couldn't get by (hydronephrosis in doctor terms), and there were 2 more smaller stones in my kidney. Not really what I was expecting. I thought I was just being a baby about some little pain in my side. So anyway, back in the ER they gave me some good pain and nausea meds, and for the first time in over 12 hours I was pain free. Then I started puking. I hadn't eaten, so a lot of it was dry heaves. Apparently that is what happens when you have a blocked ureter. So that put me over the edge and they didn't want to let me go home and Jared didn't want to take me home, so I stayed in the hospital last night. I did much better when I got some phenergan and got some sleep. This morning I am going home and I have an appointment with a urologist at 2:30pm to see what he thinks. Right now I'm not hurting much, but I think it's because the stone isn't moving. When I do hurt, it's in the same place it's been the whole time. Don't know if I'll have to have it retrieved, broken up, or neither. Guess we'll see this afternoon.
I'll try to get a picture of my CT scan on here at some point for those that would be interested and know what they were looking at. It's not hard to see though. And I could put an arrow pointing to it. Anyway, guess we'll see what happens.





-- Posted from my iPhone