That’s not mine. That’s actually much bigger than mine. Looks like it belongs in Honey Bunches of Oats cereal or something. “Krunchy Kidney Stones”

[Long entry. Feel free to skim. Or skip. There's also lots of issues with conflicting tenses that I was just to lazy to go back and fix.]

I really didn’t want to call an ambulance. I had that feeling of, “Is this really the kind of thing that warrants an ambulance? What if the pain goes away? I’ll feel like such an ass.”

I was at my desk at work last Thursday when the pain came on around my kidney. It grew to a point where I decided to leave work early, about 4:30. As I walked outside it got worse. I bent over, tried to get the pain to go away. Tried to not look weird to the group of ladies going to their cars. I called Emilee and asked if I could come over. I tried getting in my truck but the pain prevented me from sitting. I called her back and asked if she could pick me up. She was on her way.

I trudged over to the front of the building and to the front desk, inside and past the receptionist. I tried again not to look too weird. When the pain was becoming unbearable, I walked over to her, leaned on the desk with rather labored breathing and said, “This is kind of weird. But I’ve got this horrible pain in my side that won’t stop.” “Do you want me to call an ambulance?” she asked. “I think so,” I said.

I slumped against a wall. A guy from work walked by and ran to get me water. Emilee showed up and sat with me. The ambulance came, they loaded me up and took me to the E.R.

Perhaps the worst of it was waiting in a waiting room in a wheelchair with swine flu people with masks on, trying to give my information, insurance information and credit card to an extremely calm and not-terribly-interested receptionist as I’m experiencing a pain I wouldn’t describe as the worst I’ve felt, but the longest-lasting pain I’ve ever felt, which makes up for the lack of its severity. It’s been about an hour now of non-stop kidney pain that makes it hard to sit, hard to breath, hard to think of anything but why the hell it’s happening. My debit card is declined and I rip open my wallet and unwittingly throw my VISA card at her. I think apologized, and as well, she seemed like this thing happens to her from time to time.

Emilee and Buck are now both in the waiting room with me. I was surprised, despite how I was feeling, to find I was worried about how helpless they must feel, about how watching a friend writhing in pain must really feel crappy. I think I made an attempt at humor by apologizing for the exciting night.

After maybe 15-20 minutes in the waiting room, I finally get wheeled into what I think is called the triage unit. Other beds, all in one room, curtained off for privacy. I get in the hospital gown, which is a piece of fashion I’ve never had the pleasure of wearing. Thankfully, I could leave my boxers on, but it’s amazing how previous inhibitions just completely fall away when shit hits the fan.

“Have you had any blood in your urine?” a nurse asks me. I’d gone to the bathroom around 3:30 or 4 that day, and I replied, no. “Can you give us a sample?” And the give me the cup, and I look around and find the only thing to do is face the corner and hope no one opens up the curtain surrounding my bed.

A very rapid sinking feeling as what comes out of me looks like a medium-dark red wine. This freaks me out more than anything. The nurse comes back for it and I say, “It wasn’t like that earlier.”

Many sporadic minutes spent laying on my side, in between nurses walking in and out, gripping the rails of my bed and just focusing on trying to handle the pain in my side. Wishing desperately that I was the only person in the unit, that they only had me to worry about, and that I’d have non-stop attention. It’s hard to be selfless when you feel like your own self is at risk.

A nurse (I don’t know if that’s their title) comes back and tells me that blood in urine is actually a good sign in that it’s probably a kidney stone, which at this point, sounds fantastic to me considering some of the other ideas that had been floating through my head. They’ll get a CAT scan done just to make sure.

It’s interesting to me to realize now that I wasn’t really scared throughout the whole ordeal so far; I had more of a logical thought process going on: get to the hospital, let’s see what the urine sample means, let’s get the CAT scan, lets go from there, let’s just get this f****** pain to stop. The pain, and stopping it, were my main concerns.

Apparently convinced that it’s a kidney stone due also to the amount of calcium in the urine, they give me a non-narcotic pain killer that a nurse tells me “is really good for kidney stones”.

At this point my Dad and Lynda walk in, but Lynda leaves to go back to the waiting room. My Dad asks the usual but is more or less silent, which is fine because I don’t have much energy to expend in conversation.

I’m not sure if the drug she gave me worked, because I think the stone moved on and was no longer blocking the kidney, which is what a nurse told me was the pain I was feeling; the kidney was spasming at not being able to expel whatever was in it. At any rate, I felt a slight stinging somewhere else I won’t mention, and at that point the pain rapidly disappeared. It was at this point that I was close to as happy as I’ve ever been in my life. I start chatting up my dad about the experience, and I’m actually in a very good mood.

Long time waiting to get wheeled back for the CAT scan. About 5 minutes to do the CAT scan. Then I get wheeled into the hallway after hearing the scanner guy bitching about how he’s got people lined up and can’t wheel me back right now. So I lay in the hall for what must’ve been about 20 minutes, occasionally dozing off.

Wheeled back, I wait again behind my curtain listening to other patients problems. A nurse comes through the curtain and says, “You’ve got a bunch!” She tells me I’ve got like 8 stones spread out between the two kidneys. She says, “You didn’t know you had these?” And I’m of course wondering how in the hell I’d ever know I had them, short of, say, one trying to squeeze its way out of one my kidneys, like tonight. She tells me the one that’s moving right now is 3mm. Apparently 4mm is when they consider doing the treatment where they blow them up with sound waves. There’s also a 4mm one hanging out in the left kidney along with some smaller ones in both the left and right. She leaves. I wait, again, still in a very spritely mood now that the pain had gone.

Another nurse comes, I get some percocets, a drug to open up the urinary passages and an antibiotic. I also get a strainer into which I’m told to urinate until the stone passes. I’m told to take the pain killers as soon as I get home, to “stay ahead of the pain”. Also to drink water constantly to help push the stone along. I get dressed and we leave.

I really wasn’t given much of a clue what to expect, except that kidney stones in men are about the pain-equivalent of women giving birth. But as to when it’ll happen, what to expect, I’m really told nothing.

Dad and Lynda drive me back to work, where my truck is at. I’m able to drive because I’m not in any pain and the pain killer they gave me at the hospital wasn’t a narcotic, so I was fine in the head. I stop and get a couple jugs of water and cigarettes. Arriving home, exhausted, I start the percocets, drink a bunch of water and hit the sack.

The next few days are really not terribly interesting. I kept taking the pain pills in anticipation of the worst pain of my life. I actually really enjoyed the time off because it felt like a last meal, a last party before going to war; I enjoyed doing nothing but reading, playing with Logic and posting stupid updates to Facebook and Twitter about my experience.

By Sunday I was getting a bit depressed about not being able to drive and stuck at the barn all day, every day. I had a few visitors, Heidi, Christian and Kylie. Lisa stopped over with Aspen and a frozen pizza. But I began wondering what the point of taking pain pills was if I wasn’t feeling any pain, and wondering how long this would go on for, and when I’d get back to work. I was even wondering if I hadn’t passed the stone already since there was no pain anywhere.

Today I went to a urologist who did an x-ray and found that the stone hadn’t passed yet, that it was hanging out between the kidney and the bladder, which is relatively normal. He tells me that these things can take up to 2-3 weeks to pass. More pain could come if the stone moves in such a way to block the passage, which would again make the kidney spasm. The actual exit of the stone may or may not be terribly painful; he said the stone I had was “soft”, which seems like a very relative term to me.

We didn’t talk much about the other stones except to note that they can all be passed normally with the exception of the 4mm one. I can however opt for invasive procedures if I feel so inclined.

Bottom line, I stopped taking the pain pills, I’ll go on like normal, go back to work, carrying percocets (and now Vicodin) in my pocket in anticipation of whatever pain the stone decides to cause. Drinking water like a mo-fo and hoping it doesn’t happen while I’m not at home.

Talking to Dusty over instant messenger about it, he obvserves, “So with eight kidney stones to deliver i guess that put’s you right up there with octomom.”

Call me Octo-Dad.

Tags: cereal, kidney stone, pain

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 11:22 pm and is filed under events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.