The Rolling Stones

The stone is not rolling.
It’s stuck in my urethra, and causing some hydronephrosis.
I slept one hour last night.
I will not go into further detail at this time, but it does involve vomit. 🙂
I have 2 new lovers, their names are Morphine and Toradol.
wah.
9 hours, 85 dollars later, I’m going back to bed.
I hate you stone.
Update at 6:06 pm (don’t read if you’re squeamish, but there’s a good chance some of you will get kidney stones, so I thought I’d share my experience).
So, last night I worked my whole shift — no pains. I get home, I surf and check email and go to bed. I thought my back was hurting a little bit, but that’s fairly normal from work and I was kinda laying funny while I read a book (check good reads soon). I got to sleep around 1 am (stupid book). At 2:30′ish I wake-up. My body is shaking all on its own, I can’t stop. My back is KILLING me and I feel like I really have to pee. I think I’ve mentioned I’ve had a UTI lately on my blog, so I was thinking maybe I had a kidney infection, so I got-up to pee. I thought I’d pop me some Urastat and call it a night, but the shaking wouldn’t stop. I called Kaiser, to see what they thought. The nurse felt I was on the fence of going or not going. She said I should take some tylenol and try and get some sleep, but if I threw-up I needed to come back in. Took tylenol, and immediately threw up.
So, it was off to the ER (drove myself with the vomit bucket in the passenger seat). I got there and saw a friend from church. Her son had gotten a laceration last night and they come into the ER at 10 pm — I got to the ER around 3:30 am — and they were still there. That just gives you an idea.
I saw the triage nurse. I also started crying and shaking, so although she was unable to give me a bed to be seen, she did give me a gurney in the hall (so I could shake and face the wall). I waited on that gurney til’ around 6:15 (note: this is just about 3 hours).
Then, I went into a room and put a gown on (thankfully, they let me keep my pants on — thanks for that). I then waited in THAT room for another 2 hours.
I literally wanted to die. It is just like labor pains (without the pushing, burning etc.). However, it’s constant. There’s no break between contractions. It was like a 5 hour contraction while I waited in their ER. For my nurse friends — my pain went from around a 6 when I got there to an 8 by the time I got seen. I couldn’t lay down I paced my room the whole time, poking my head out the door to see if anyone remembered me. My nurse (who I am not too fond of) just kept saying “sorry, it’s change of shift.”
So, then I got a nice nurse (change of shift wasn’t all bad), who put in an IV so whatever the doctor wanted, she’d have a line available (bless her). I must admit being a nurse has its perks. She knew people I knew and we grew a bond. She was really great, as was the nurse that followed her.
Doctor came-in, thought that it was a kidney stone and ordered the good drugs, along with some Zofran to cut down on nausea (which was great since I usually get high on triaminic, and don’t normally do well with medications in general). He also ordered a CT. Which I got and that confirmed I had a kidney stone. However, it had passed the kidney and was right by the bladder. I’ve been having this bladder pain (which I thought was a UTI) for 2 weeks now, turns-out it’s the stone irritating the bladder. My stone is 6 mm — which I guess is fairly good-sized and there is a 77% chance it will pass (go stone! go stone! go stone!). I also got an X-ray so that when I see the urologist next week he can tell if it’s moved at all. If not, I guess they will blast it (which requires general anesthesia — which I am totally not in the mood for). In total I got 1 dose of toradol and 3 doses of morphine. It pretty well took care of my pain but once you’re in that much pain you live in fear of having that pain again. I think I asked the doctor about 12 times what I should do it the medications he prescribed for home didn’t work (vicodin, 600 mg ibuprphen, zofran and pyridium). I think he thought I was a little excessive — but he’s a resident, so what does he know?
HUGE props to our friend Rowena. I did drive myself to the ER (I didn’t want to wait to have someone get the kids, etc. Plus, there was no reason for Drew to wait around with me when he could be sleeping) but she watched the kids once it was a decent hour and pretty much made it the best day ever for them (a soccer game and Burger King — hello!). I am so thankful for our friend base here at times we have an emergency. Although, my mom demanded I move back to Utah this very instance when she found-out I was in the hospital — I know she and I are both grateful I have such great friends.
Go Stone! Go Stone! Go Stone!!!!!
Really, a little prayer that it passes soon would be much appreciated.