Thursday, February 7, 2008

The Traveling Stone...

Last night at around 8 p.m., I was loading the dishwasher and I had a small pain in my back. I thought I might have a bladder infection, and drank some water. The small pain quickly became a big pain and I went to lie down for a few minutes on the floor. Fari & Arezou were over and Arezou made room for me on the couch. I told her I had a 'twinge' or something in my back and I needed to put pressure on it. The very next minute, the pain was so sharp I got up to get some Advil and knew I must have a kidney infection. I told Omid I was going upstairs to lie down, as the pain was so bad. Omid followed me upstairs and I immediately burst into tears. It felt like I was going into labor - full blown contraction like pain! Omid massaged my back, and I was trying to breathe & tell him where the pain was & cry at the same time. He called his Mom upstairs and together with Arezou & the kids, they conferred (with the help of a phone call to the Dr. & Web MD & a friend of Arezou's who is a Dr.) I needed to go to the hospital. This is all happening in about 7 minutes. I had awful nausea as well and was so hot.
Omid took me to the ER and on the way there I was praying that we would be the only ones in the ER. The ER has Valet parking (which was so nice & free to boot), so we didn't have to worry about finding a place to park and walk (because I couldn't I was so doubled over with pain). When we went inside, the ER was packed! I looked at Omid and really started to cry. I could also hardly breathe. There was a line to check in (we wre 3rd). The two people in front of us were so nice, they begged Omid to cut them in line. The first man in line was there his sick toddler (& I felt bad cutting). I was thanking him through tears & sobs (& thanking God for not making us wait). Omid checked me in and we didn't even have to wait 5 minutes. A nurse whisked me back and immediately got an IV started. I was given medicine for the extreme nausea and pain. I was asked to give a sample of urine and I tried, but....it was so little. I had the IV in the bend of my elbow on my right arm and then the lab tech came and took blood from my left arm (same elbow bend - I can barely bend my arms it hurt still this a.m.).
The Dr. was great! He got the pain under control with shot of a pain med called Dilaudid, that is 10 times stronger that morphine. It did the trick. He said I had a classic textbook case of a Kidney stone! I couldn't believe it. I thought that only happened to people much later in life. Guess not! I was given a cat scan to be sure. By this time, the pain medicine worked and I wasn't in pain anymore. The nausea was worse and I got sick. The cat scan confirmed that the Kidney was swollen and also the ureter, and that I had passed the stone (apparently when I gave the sample).
This was something I don't ever want to happen again! It was agony. We finally got home around 12:15 a.m. Fari & Arezou stayed with the kids. I was sick several times on the way home (thank God I took a bowl with me) and am still nauseous/sick this morning. I hope I make it through the day at work.
Moral of the story: Drink lots of water! In my case, I drink coffee, tea and wine and not enough water.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

...what about soda?

Anonymous said...

oh yeah.
TEN TIMES STRONGER THAN MORPHINE?!
dangggggg.