Kidney Stone, Round Two

Well, March was National Kidney Awareness month, so I missed by about two weeks, but ...

Yesterday morning I had some weird symptoms that made me suspect I had another kidney stone (6 years since the last). This morning, I got up, showered, and suddenly was in increasing pain.

I tried to tough it out for a while, figuring it'd fade. Last time I had a kidney stone, I had some pretty notable pain, but after an hour or so of discomfort it'd pass (the pain, not the stone, never the stone). And sure enough, after an hour the pain started ramping down ... and then just when I thought I was out it pulled me back in. So I called my dad and asked for a pretty-please ride to the ER.

The hospital is about 25 minutes from our house. (We're actually between two hospitals, one to the west and one to the east, and the one to the west is a scant few minutes closer, but the one to the east is I think the bigger one and definitely the one with all my doctors and insurance and stuff.) It was the worst 25 minute car ride I've ever had. I was in constant discomfort and a high level of pain. The only thing that'd relieved it at all before was pacing, and sadly I couldn't do that in the car. About 85% of the way there I told my dad I couldn't take it any more and we pulled into the Burger King parking lot where I jumped out and, due to the pain, vomited in the grass for a bit.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to vomit in the grass right outside the Burger King.

Then we made it the last several (six, actually) blocks to the hospital and the ER.

I checked in, and then I went outside where it was slightly cooler, knowing K. could grab me when the nurse called me. The car ride had made the pain even worse somehow, so I paced and then kneeled down and then finally lay down on the blissfully cool cement just to the side of the entrance.

A nurse coming out to call someone else in told me I couldn't lie on the ground. I told her it was cool. So she went back in and had a burlier guy come out to tell me I had to lay on the (non-cool) bench not the ground. So I wandered and paced more and before long Kimberly came out to tell me the triage nurse was ready to talk to me.

I told her I thought it was a kidney stone. Yes, I'd had one before. I rated the pain a 10, worse than the previous stone had ever been. Worst pain I've ever had. I paced and sweated while we talked. I was very pleased that she took it seriously and put me straight into a room (when most of the triaged patients were being sent back into the overflowing waiting room ... but as my dad pointed out, a waiting room without metal detectors, unlike our old stomping grounds in Berkeley). She then gave me something to loosen up my urinal tubes or something.

In five minutes, the pain was down to a 5.

In fifteen minutes, it was down to a 2.

I practically collapsed in relief.

A CAT scan followed. 4mm stone, dropped down into my tubes and partially obstructing, just what I'd expected. (On the downside there's apparently a new 7mm stone up in the other kidney, but that's literally a problem for another day.) They told me it should pass.

(What I vaguely recall last time was that 5mm and under usually pass, and then 5mm to 8mm or something is questionable, and over that and you're off to ultrasonic lithotripsy. My last stone was 6mm and never passed until they blasted it apart (tripsied it?).)

So they sent me home with opiates to help with the pain, narcan to keep me from ODing, and flowmax to open up the pathways and hopefully make the stone pass easier.

When the pain started coming back this evening, the opiates largely took care of it, so hoping that will remain the case.

And what'd I do when I got home? I sat down to pay my quarterly taxes.

The glamorous life of a freelance writer.