Friday, August 7, 2015

Kidney stone update

I guess last week's 10 minute incident was just the prelude to the real thing. The pain started at 7:00am. I really thought I would tough it out. Going to the emergency room is expensive and all they can do is treat symptoms.

The pain was unbelievable... beyond what I remember for past incidents. It got to the point that I couldn't take myself to the hospital. After four hours of trying to suck it up, I tried calling a friend to pick me up but she didn't answer her phone. The turning point was pain so intense that I threw up!

I ended up driving myself to the ER. I hobbled into the waiting room in extreme pain. I was immediately admitted and two nurses started setting up pain relief. Again I have never felt pain like this. I'm not sure how long it took for all the pain killers to kick in but it was way longer than I thought it would be.

They did a CT scan to find how big and where the stone was. Size - 4mm. Where - just downstream from the kidney. Four millimeters is pretty substantial. According to my nurse, a 5mm means that an overnight stay is necessary.

I had arrived at the hospital before noon and got back home at 3pm. It seemed much longer. The pain is still at bay and now I need to try to catch the stone.

No comments: