It started on a Friday morning. A weird feeling in my lower right abdomen… like there was a little bubble there. Not painful, but definitely distracting. No cause for concern, I usually get a little crampy at the end of my period and it had just ended the night before… so I filed it away in the back of my mind; marked it with “N” for “nothing” “not important” “no need to worry”.
I finished packing and got on the road to head West. It was more than it had been, but really not bad. I ignored it some more.
You would think I would know something was wrong just from the car ride. I found the dog wearing on my patience even though he was behaving. More than this, though, was the fact that I usually love a long drive because of all the singing I do. I didn’t sing much.
About the time I got off the highway it was officially a pain, albeit not a big one, in my lower right abdomen. I brought all of my stuff in from the car and curled up on the bed. Ten minutes later my first meeting started. The pain?
It came and went, but when it came, it announced itself loudly. A twinge in my lower right belly would become a quick stab, radiating throughout and making me feel worse than I think I’ve ever felt. It wouldn’t stop and at times got so bad I thought I might pass out.
I couldn’t pay attention. I couldn’t give my input. I played with my room key.
The plastic white rectangle was distracting, but not enough so.
I placed it on the table in front of me, slid it toward Melissa and said, “I gotta go to the ER, dude,”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“I’ve had this nonstop pain in my lower right side since yesterday. Got really bad last night. I can’t keep ignoring it,”
“Appendicitis. I’ll go with you,”
“No, I’ll be okay, but thanks – here’s my room key in case they admit me,”
Someone had to take care of Knuckles. I had brought him in order to give Kris a break from doggy convalescence duty (our other dog was recovering from surgery). Melissa didn’t do dogs but I knew she’d discreetly get one of our dog-loving compatriots to help out.
I quietly exited the room the pain increasing.
The woman at the front desk was kind of a pain in the ass about giving me directions to the local hospital. Holding the precious information from me while listing a bunch of area clinics and urgent care locations. I knew they’d just send me to the ER and I’ve never even been to one.
Armed with the directions I made my way.
The emergency room was macabre… more than most ER’s. The 20-something in the wheelchair moaning. The old woman in a chair dry heaving into a bedpan.
They charged me a co-pay citing a non-emergent visit. Oh, really?
After being put in a room I waited, by myself, with a few pop-ins by the weird male nurse who wanted, desperately, samples of my urine. The tech took blood. He did a fantastic job.
More waiting.
The doctor came in, clearly thinking there was nothing wrong with me.
X-rays. Horrible twenty minute internal sonogram (be thankful if you don’t know what this is).
I was told it was an intestinal spasm and that I’d need to take an anti-spasmodic and vicodin. The cocktail was enough to make me sleep for days and did nothing for the pain.
Sunday wasn’t much better, although the pain was never excruciating. We had little work left to do, well they had little left to do – I was no help Saturday as I didn’t get out of the ER until after everyone was done working. Drove home feeling not so great but better than I had, and as soon as I walked in the door I took the pain meds and anti-spasmodic for this “intestinal cramping”.
They didn’t help.
And then I had to pee, and felt better as soon as I did, until I looked into the bowl. “Babe?!” I called.
“That can’t be okay,” I pointed.
K, not one for discussing pee unless the conversation also includes asparagus, shrugged, “But you said, just now while peeing, that you suddenly felt better,” (yeah, I often pee with the door open and feel the need to chat to him if he’s in the living room… oh, stop judging)
“But that’s not normal,” I repointed… trying to emphasize the fact that the bowl should NOT look like THAT post pee.
“It’s just dark,” he started to walk away.
“It’s not DARK… it’s BLOOD!”
“But you’re feeling okay, right? You’re fine,”
“THAT’S NOT FINE!”
I wasn’t in pain any longer, and because it was the night of the series finale of Lost, I was actually more worried about that, after getting checked into the ER, than I was about the fact that I had just pissed an inordinate amount of blood.
They took blood, took pee (clear to the naked eye, but had “quite a bit of blood”). They asked questions and said I’d passed a kidney stone.
This took many hours of tests, poking, prodding, etc. but at least I got to watch Lost. And was told my pain was over.
But then…
Monday came, and with it, the pain was back. With a vengeance. I walked into the ER and the admitting nurse took one look at me and said, "I'm sorry you're in so much pain,"They immediately hooked me up to an iv. It took a while because the doctor was in training. I can still see a slight discoloration. A purple kiss where the vein was ruptured.
Not too long after my IV was in they injected Toradol into the line. Thank God, The Universe, Jehovah, Jesus, Buddha, whomever, for Torodal. It’s slow, but completely deletes kidney stone pain.
Before the Toradol kicked in my colleague kept calling, not seeming to understand that I was in the ER in excruciating pain until I finally answered. Crying. But it kicked in, and the pain, while lessened at first, was quickly gone.
They wheeled me away and took weird computer images of my insides, trying to unravel why I had so much pain if I’d passed the stone the day before.
It was another busy day in the ER. The ER was hopping. The pain was exhausting and the results were taking a while. I was brought to a dark place.
I preferred this new area of the hospital, tucked next to the ER but quiet, dim, and television free. For a short time I read, talked to Kris, reveled in being pain free.
But then it came back. The Toradol had passed through my system and was no longer keeping the nightmare at bay. While moving me I’d noticed a few twinges, and they promised more pain meds soon with that look of, “Man, am I glad I’ve never had one of these.”
The nurse came by to inject my line.
“That’s not Toradol,”
“No. Better. Morphine,” she explained smiling.
The nurse disappeared behind my bed where the iv was and suddenly I felt something cold on the inner crook of my elbow and on my back. I looked. Nothing there. My ears felt enormous pressure and my heart raced. I was panicking but I didn’t know why. Suddenly I realized that the cold I felt was inside of me. In my veins.
“I am feeling really weird,” I said to her, my voice shaking.
“That’s normal. I’ll sit here with you, it might get worse before it gets better,”
I looked at Kris in wide-eyed horror. Worse than this?
On top of making me feel like I was having a massive panic attack, the morphine did nothing for the pain I was experiencing. So here I was, on a Monday afternoon, worried about work… worried about whatever the hell may or may not be wrong with me (what if it isn’t a kidney stone?) and on top of it all feeling the pain come back (the Toradol was starting to wear off… meaning I could only guess the pain would get much, much worse).
The doctor came back not too long later, “Well, it’s a three millimeter kidney stone,”
Here are some things that are three millimeters:
One eight of an inch
Three grains of sugar
Three grains of sand
The thickness of the ozone layer
The amount sea level is rising in a year
Lappula squarrosa (it’s flower… the plant grows to be about eight millimeters tall)
The width of many wedding bands
The thickness of one of the new Sony flat screen televisions
The scale used in old model sets (trains, airplanes, etc)
The size of a blood spot needed to run most tests
Round calibrated gemstones for purchase on GemSelect
“It’s almost to your bladder now.”
That said, I was kept a little while longer to finish the fluids in my IV and get less weird from the morphine. I was told to not work until it passed and that, based on where it was, that would be within twenty four hours but if it didn’t come out in those first twenty four, it could be a week. Dr. P’s parting words of advice were that it would, “hurt like the Dickens when it comes out!”
Driving home I did nothing but complain about the morphine and one of my colleagues. Some people just don’t understand.
She wouldn’t stop calling. Despite my assistant telling her that I was in the hospital, despite my assistant explaining the excrutiating pain that comes with a kidney stone, she kept texting me. Yes, we had a big event planned but guess what, that’s why you get paid the big bucks – fucking deal with it. But she didn’t. She just kept texting.
Finally I called her, hiding in the bathroom, the only place I was getting a signal that day in the ER. I cried the entire time and I think she finally realized that she needed to quit bothering me.
When we got home I immediately got onto the couch and under the covers where I waited for the morphine to wear off. I had some soreness and pain but it wasn’t the hardcore, absolutely horrific pain I’d been having.
I spent the week on the couch, pretty much. On the couch and in our powder room downstairs. I think that’s the appropriate name for a bathroom that’s just a sink and a toilet. It’s not a half bathroom because that has a shower, right?
I started drinking a hundred ounces of water each day and peeing like a racehorse.
Dr. P prescribed FloMax so we stopped at Meijer and got some. I was in pain… we stopped on the way home. FloMax and Vicodin. I’d been on Vicodin when I had my wisdom teeth out. I remembered, distinctly, that it did nothing for the pain but made me ridiculously sleepy. I figured I’d try it for this pain and then save it for the nights when I couldn’t sleep.
Luckily I had ordered some books… otherwise I would have gone crazy. Also, let’s face it, no one cared that I had been in and out of the hospital. Calls/Texts/Emails…
Tuesday and Wednesday were actually much better days. I couldn’t drive because the FloMax and Vicodin cocktail was nothing short of dangerous. But I did learn a few things. First, it’s great to be fully hydrated… you do really feel better. I’m horrible about hydration because of the craziness of my job and my addiction to coffee. Also, for the first time in a long time I started paying attention to hunger. Only eating when I was hungry. Stopping as soon as I wasn’t hungry. I lost six pounds in about a week. And I hadn’t been to the gym!
On Thursday the pain came back. I woke on the couch with a dull ache in the same spot. If it felt the same that meant it still hadn't moved to my bladder, right?Great.Vicodin wasn't taking the edge off but it wasn't bad enough (yet) to go to the hospital for a bag of fluids, Toradol.
I had a feeling I could find something that would help. And so, despite K leaving for work, despite being all alone, I partook.
It didn’t really do shit for the pain, but at least it made me care about it less.
Friday I had some soreness, a little ache, but better than Thursday. My day was spent much like many others when I was feeling okay. Cheerios for breakfast, a short walk with the dogs (one can’t stand the heat), lots of reading, some writing, maybe a snooze… I was bored, but also happy to be afforded a job with sick days. There was no way I could be like this at the office, especially with the constant trips to the bathroom (a million miles away from my office) from drinking a hundred ounces of water. I’d never been better hydrated.
Saturday during the day was okay. I thought maybe the two days of pain out of nowhere were a sign that it had moved, hopefully into my bladder. I feared, a little, the passing – hearing that it would hurt, but I didn’t care much because I needed this to end. I had no pain Saturday and K and I, unable to do much, could still somewhat enjoy the day. I even scheduled a mani/pedi appointment to help with my misery.
At noon it started. And it was bad. The first time I’d cried since Monday. I didn’t want to go.
It was silly, really, my reluctance to go to the ER since every time I did they understood, treated quickly, and the pain evaporated.
I put on my PJs hoping it would help. It didn’t.
I grabbed a new book and we went. It was bad. But they knew me know and didn’t make me change. They didn’t do anything but hook me to an IV, shoot in some Toradol, and sympathize.
I was stuck in a hallway; it was a holiday weekend so the drunken fools were everywhere forcing extra beds and setups into the hall. I didn’t care.
“Did it hurt?” the woman was a dead ringer for that lady in The Sound Of Music who performs the night the Von Trapps do; the night they escape. The one who won’t stop bowing. Her soft-spoken English was that of a non-native speaker who’d learned, well, at a very young age – a beautiful lilt letting us know she was German, Austrian, possibly Swiss, but I doubted it.
“What?” the weird man who was a cross between Bill Gates and Stephen King yelled, causing Kris and I to jump.
“Did it hurt?” she repeated, louder this time.
Raw comedy ensued.
“It was just a picture of my leg!” he yelled; she was no more than five feet from him.
“Did they find anything?”
“What?!”
“Not sure,” and then a pause, “The nurse is very attractive, don’t you think?”
“What?!” she couldn’t hear, too?
“The nurse… she’s very attractive,” pause “She was very intimate with me,”
“What?”
“The nurse was very intimate with me!” pause “I did all I could not to get an erection,”
?!
“I did all I could not to get an erection!!”
It was no use, we laughed at that point. Loudly.
Here’s what I remember from that last night in the ER:
1. I was mortified, once I felt better, at what I was wearing.
2. A man screaming in the ER – most likely drunk.
3. Erection man
4. Seeing pics of everyone’s (docs, nurses, techs) kids in their ID badge holder.
5. Getting a huge chunk of the first twilight book read
6. Blood in my IV line on one of many trips to the bathroom; nearly passing out.
7. Kris telling me about an old man bitching about his kidney stone.
8. Random text messages from someone named Jenny.
I was glad after the Saturday night with ErectionMan; I didn’t have any more pain. I looked forward to going to work Tuesday (After MD Weekend). That was fine with me; I needed a few more days to actually enjoy my life and not spend it on the couch waiting for the next go-round of pain. I needed time with the dogs, playing outside, hanging out with Kris hiding from the oppressive heat and indulging in a few too many wee hour of the morning video gaming moments. I needed to be in the car, to work in the yard.
We spent a significant portion of that long weekend indoors. The heat was unbearable and even the dogs weren’t keen on being outside. Thank Goodness for video games, right? The strange thing is, we’re not gamers. We have maybe four games in our house, but when we heard a new game from RockStar had debuted we decided to celebrate my feeling better by purchasing it. We made the trip to Best Buy like two kids running downstairs Christmas morning. I’m sorry, but any game that is similar to Grand Theft Auto but on horseback, is enough to keep me entertained.
It wasn’t until nearly a week later, on a Friday, when I finally passed my stone. I woke up incredibly grateful for another pain-free day but a little anxious, as I had been, that I hadn’t passed it. I was meeting S for coffee, as we normally do on Fridays, and as I got ready for that I noticed the strangest feeling down below. A sort of presence. A pinching. An awareness. Not pain, although once in a while it felt a little scratchy. I upped my water intake and prayed for the best.
I never felt the stone pass.
BY Nancy C.
