Saturday, October 06, 2012

Not Again


Yesterday I had a normal average day.  Then last night I relaxed with tv.  By Fridays I am very tired so I normally have a low key Friday night.  I went off to bed tired from the week and happy it was the weekend but other than that nothing really to speak of.  Then at 3am WHAM - I am startled awake from my sleep with pain and immediately I knew it was another kidney stone attack.  The stone is trying to pass through your system and so sitting or lying down makes the agonizing pain completely unbearable.  I took a lot of ibuprofen and then paced for 90 minutes because that soothes me and normally makes it feel better.  But last night it just kept getting worse and I knew I could not make it until 9am when the Urgent Care center opens up so I went to the hospital.   I had to wait about an hour and the whole time I paced and moaned in utter pain and went to the men's room like 1,000 times.  When they took me in I was crying, begging and pleading for pain relief medicine - they must have thought I was an addict.  By time they got me medicine I had been in level 10 pain for 3 hours!  They ended up giving me morphine.  I have never had morphine before but I know it is strong.  It helped but 30 minutes after they gave me a dose I was still at level 8 pain so they gave me another does of morphine.  How nuts is that??? Two doses.  The 2nd dose at least got me down to a level 4 pain which felt like utter heaven.  It was at that point they could finally do a cat scan.   Turns out I had two stones - one 2mm which is not too bad but one 6mm which is insane.  I googled a size chart tonight and could not believe my eyes.  The doctor even said that he was surprised it only took 2 doses of morphine to get the pain under control.  They let me rest a little while they watched me and then send me home with some medicine's - including pain medicine as the attacks always happen the same way - in the middle of the night and with no warning.  They told me I have a cyst on my kidney also and need to see a urologist.  I contacted my primary care immediately and just have to wait for a referral to make the appointment.  I did sleep some when I got home from the hospital and have not had needed any pain medicine this afternoon other than some more ibuprofen.  I am  afraid to go to sleep but I am going to take one of the prescription pain pills just in case plus it will help me stay calm. This is crazy.  I know that at times I indulge too much in alcohol and that could cause liver problems but my kidneys?  I drink lots and lots of water.  It is the main thing I drink.  I cannot wait to talk to the urologist as I have to get this under control.   I hope I have a restful and non-eventful sleep tonight and wish the same for all of you.

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