Friday, April 30, 2010

Kidney Stones Take 2

TAKE 2
I had a great vacation planned to go up to Washington to visit my family before this baby comes. All was just great until the day I was suppose to get on a plan and fly to Salt Lake to meet up with Clinton to look for housing in Utah and check out the school.
For warning this might be a little explicit for some…..

Monday morning I woke up to get ready to head to the airport and had to pee (normal when you have a little baby sitting on your bladder). Well about 5 minutes later I had to go again then this pattern continued until we had to leave for the airport (which is a 75 min drive). My mom and I thought maybe I was getting a bladder infection or just had some urine frequency issues or my baby was sitting perfectly on my bladder. So off we went, we made it to the gas station 3 miles from home before I had to pee again which was just drops of pee…. AHH this was miserable. I made it all the way to the first rest area where we stopped and I felt like I was going to explode I could hardly walk. I think I pee’ed about 1 teaspoon, very frustrating again. So we continued to the airport and about 10 more minutes into the drive I got this stab/ache pain in my back on the right side. My first reaction was “KIDNEY STONES”. My optimistic mother said “lets not jump to the worst possibilities yet”. We made it to the airport and I was hurting and thought there I no way I can get on that plan. So we went in to see about changing my flight for tomorrow thinking for sure this would pass really quickly, like the first ones.
I have a cousin that lives in Spokane so we called him up to stay for a while until I could pass the stones or figure out what was going on. About 3 hours into all this I was in pretty excruciating pain and kept thinking this is going to pass any moment. It felt like someone had a serrated knife on the end of a blender and it was turned on high speed inside my back. It was CONSTANT pain that NEVER subsided, pretty painful to say the least. I fought the pain for about 6 hours when I finally gave in and needed some relief. We ended up going to an ER in Spokane where I spent 5 hours in pain but part of my brain had numbed it out and the drugs helped to relax me. They gave me as much morphine as they could to help and the nurses were very pleasant, but sometimes they pain was just too much for morphine, basically I was in a fog and didn’t care that it hurt so bad. The ER Dr wanted to admit me to see the Urologist but I just felt like I really needed to get home and see my regular Dr’s and just be home with all this happening. I didn't want to have any procedures or surgery for this without being home with my husband. He was very understanding and said it was my ultimate decision.
I decided to leave and try and catch a flight out Tuesday morning. I left the hospital after being pumped full of drugs and I hadn’t eaten in over 12 hours, I got in the car and my mom started to drive off and yelled STOP…. I opened the door I began to puke up everything I had drank and all the medication they gave me that day, surprisingly it felt really well and we were on our way. After getting to my cousins house I wanted something in my stomach so I ate 1 slice of toast and 5 minutes later I was puking everything up again, most likely from the pain being so bad. At the point my body had dulled the pain to a point i could tolerate. I gave up and went to get some sleep. I woke up at 5am where i was lying on my back (which i couldn't do before) with severe pain in my back and the urge to pee again!! I could hardly get my self out of bed b/c it involved using my back muscles and lifting my right leg. I was able to pee a little but it was not comfortable. I woke up my mom and she called the airlines to change my flight to head straight back to Mesa instead of Salt Lake, it was a pretty penny but I knew I had to get home.
With stabbing/sharp pain from a stone that was blocking my urine flow, and possibly a stone in my kidney that hadn’t passed, puking everything up and having the URGE to pee every 10 minutes I geared up and got on a plan and headed home.
Oh I will be honest the plan ride was not fun, cramped tight seat with a huge pillow shoved behind my back b/c i couldn't sit normal, so i was half on my left side trying not to sit on the person next to me and pretend that all was okay. After takeoff I puked all my breakfast and felt like my kidney and bladder was going to explode. I just focused and breathed like I was in labor (not even knowing what that is like) until we landed. My father in law picked me up and we went straight to the ER. I was admitted straight to the L&D (labor and deliver) department, I was not in labor but they needed to monitor the baby during all this, b/c intense pain can cause contractions and they want to make sure i wasn't going into labor. They took me to ultrasound and found I had blockage and a kidney stone in my right kidney that was 12mm in diameter 1.2 cm, which is HUGE just smaller than a dime. You would think that is tiny but not really when your urethra is only 3mm in diameter. Try pushing a 12mm object through a 3mm whole!! Not going to be so pleasant at all!! So after suffering several painful attaches throughout the night I woke up and felt some relief. They strained my urine all day and my nurse told me my urine looked sandy, which i noticed as well. (maybe the stone had broken up into tiny sand pieces, which was much more comfortable coming out).
Clinton was still in Salt Lake and left Wednesday morning and made it to town around 6pm, I was so excited to see him. After 10 days being apart I was ready to have my husband with me during this crazy time. That night the Urologist came and talked to me about a couple options and we decided that I should get a CT scan (knowing the risk of radiation was minimal) to find if I had a stone lodged in my urethra which was what we thought b/c we never could find an actual stone in my urine, just sandy looking stuff.
The results came back and I had NO blockage…. YEAH…..BUT I didn’t just have 1 stone I had 2, one in the right and one in the left. Right side was now 7mm and the left stone was 4mm. So some time Wednesday I passed part of the 12mm stone or passed another smaller stone.
Today they let me go home and told me that the stones are not going anywhere (hopefully!!). They shouldn’t cause me any pain as long as they don’t move down and try to exit. Having stones is not the hard part its actually passing them is when you get excruciating pain that doesn’t go away, unlike labor pains that come and go.
here is the closest picture i could find at 1cm

So after I have this little girl I will go see the urologist and he will possibly take care of the 2 stones i have. But from this point I just have to drink GALLONS AND GALLONS of H2O and hope I don’t develop more stones that want to come out. I feel better but not fully at my best, my back is sore and achy but I’m so glad to be home.
I have had quite a roller coaster with this pregnancy and hope they are not always like this! I am so grateful that our little girl is doing well and she has not been affected by any of my problems! She is sure active and during this entire time has been sitting on my right side, right next to my urethra!! I still love her!

2 comments:

ashleyboice said...

I am dying as I read this. I am so sorry. Wow. Cali had a small one after she had her baby and she said it was one of the worst pains she has ever had. Worse then labor (with an epidural of course)...I can't even imagine.

Deedles said...

So sorry! Worst pain ever! I got them once last time I was pregnant!