Last Friday night I woke up at 2 AM with super intense gas pains. Or so I thought. I went to the bathroom a couple of times, thinking Red Lobster's Endless Shrimp had gotten the best of me. But there was no relief. I finally got back to sleep about 5 AM. When I got up at 7 AM with Lexi, I felt a little crampy, but I attributed that to my morning cup of coffee because coffee had been irritating my stomach/bladder for a couple of weeks. Or so I thought. Around noon I went grocery shopping, and, by the time I got home, I was in extreme pain. It felt like a cat was clawing the inside of my lower abdomen, and now the sides of my lower back were aching. I couldn't get comfortable or sit still. I tried some gas medicine, still thinking it was a stomachache. But when that didn't provide "fast, effective relief", like the box said it would, I headed to the minor med. The nice receptionist asked what my symptoms were and said, "I'll tell you right now the doctor is gonna send you to the ER. All we can do here is take an x-ray and do a urinalysis." By this time I was suspecting a bladder infection, which the minor med could've treated, but I decided to go ahead and go to the ER.
Elian, Allie, and I spent the next 10 hours in various exam rooms. My blood test and urine were ok, and the ER doctor thought my x-ray was clean (we would later find out it wasn't.) But given my pain level, the doctor didn't feel comfortable sending me home. She passed me off to another doctor. He wanted to run a CT, do a pelvic exam, and cath me to double check my urine. When all the results were in, the doctor had this to say, "I don't know what's wrong with you. I see two stones in your kidney, but that shouldn't be causing the pain. Your ureter is dilated, which would indicate you passed a stone, but there is no blood in your urine, so that doesn't make sense. If you still hurt in a couple of days, go see your general practitioner." He sent me home with a Lortab prescription.
The Lortab helped with the back pain, but the abdominal pain kept up. By Tuesday afternoon I was on my way to see a urologist. He was able to pull up my CT and x-ray from the weekend, and he saw some things the ER doctors missed. As I told the urologist my story, he said the x-ray wasn't clean, and, not only did I have two kidney stones, I also had one in my ureter, the tube that carries urine from the kidney to the bladder. When I told him they did a pelvic exam in the ER, he laughed as if to say, "You sucker!". What he actually said was, "Bet you weren't expecting THAT!"
Anyway, he said I had a 50% chance of passing the stone in my ureter on my own, so I could wait it out, or he could go in and get it. I chose the latter, thinking it would be less painful and faster. The next morning I was put to sleep, and when I woke up, I was told all 3 stones were in my ureter, so the doctor was able to remove them all. That was great news because the alternative treatment for the 2 stones in my kidney didn't sound fun. (He was going to shoot energy into my kidneys to break up the stones, making them easier to pass). The bad news is the doctor had to put a stent in my ureter to keep it from swelling shut. This uncomfortable piece of plastic is causing an already irritated area to really hurt. And the stent has to stay in for a week, meaning I will be in this state until Thursday. Normally, I would just take the prescribed Percocet and sleep the week away. But because I am nursing a baby, I can't. Something about narcotics not being good for infants. So I either have to take an ineffective Lortab so I can nurse, or I can take a semi-effective Percocet and bottle feed Allie. The downsides to the second option are I still have to pump so my milk supply doesn't disappear, and Percocet makes me too loopy to take care of my children. Thankfully, Elian and my mom have been taking care of the girls for me as much as possible.
I'm counting down the days until the stent comes out, although I am afraid of how much that is going to hurt... But at least then my insides can begin to heal... And it will stop feeling like someone is stabbing me in the abdomen... I've forgotten what it feels like to pee without the sensation that razor blades are passing through my urinary tract...
I am also interested to learn what kind of stones I had - what they were made of. The doctor gave me two to take home and sent one off to be analyzed. What am I supposed to do with two kidney stones in a test tube? Maybe I could offer some witty suggestions if I weren't so drugged out.
I've learned that kidney stones are sometimes hereditary (both my parents have had them), and that women are more likely to get them while pregnant than when they are not (I'll have to ask the doctor if he thinks the stones were formed while I was pregnant because I need one more reason to hate pregnancy).
Time to go drink some water...
Showing posts with label ER. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ER. Show all posts
5.24.2009
Ouch
Friday night I was at home with Lexi while Elian, his dad, and his brothers were having a guys' night. I decided to make some yummy brownies. Our oven hasn't been working well, i.e., burning things, so I hung a thermometer right in the middle of the oven to see if the temperature in the oven matched the temperature on the dial. I cooked the brownies at 325, 25 degrees less than what the box said. When they were ready, I took them out and tried to read the thermometer. I wasn't at a very good angle, so I reached in the oven and tilted the thermometer. I learned 2 things: 1) the center of our oven was actually 375 degrees, and B. I'm a moron. My unprotected forearm touched the top rack of the oven. I pulled back in pain, which made my elbow touch the hot side of the oven door.
What little first aid I do know includes that burns should be placed under running cool water as soon as possible. I went to the sink and did that, observing that this was the worst burn I'd ever had. It wasn't just red. It wasn't just a closed blister. I had totally burned the skin off, exposing a bright white layer of live flesh I had never seen before. Hmm. The total burn was two inches long but less than 1 cm wide. The depth concerned me, so I did what any 26 year old would do - I Googled how to treat a burn.
I wish I hadn't.
A long list of articles popped up, and I clicked the first one. The very first sentence talked about how burns need to be treated very quickly in order to prevent further skin damage. SIXTEEN PARAGRAPHS LATER, this article still hadn't told me what those imperative steps were that I should have taken 5 minutes ago. Frustrated, I hit the back button and tried the next few articles. They all agreed with the cool water treatment I had already applied. Then they all agreed that, without a medical background, I needed to assess what degree of burn I had. Each article offered several descriptive terms of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree burns, but I was not confident in my ability to decide if I was staring at a 2nd degree or a 3rd degree burn. Unfortunately, I needed to know that before I could appropriately treat the burn. Plus, each website said conflicting things as to how to treat each type of burn. For instance, some articles told me to put a wet bandage on a 2nd degree burn. Others told me to dry off the area and apply a dry bandage. Some told me to use Neosporin to prevent infection. Some told me not to apply anything, as creams would hold in the burn.
Fifteen minutes had passed since the burn, and I was frustrated. My arm hurt. I was starting to feel nauseous, which totally could have been a coincidence given my current status of super pregnant. So I decided to call Elian and ask him if he would be willing to continue guys' night at our house, just in case I needed him. His instant reaction was, "Kelly, I need to take you to the hospital." I'm not sure if it was just hearing his voice, or if it was hormones, or if it was stress, but as I tried to downplay the seriousness of the burn, I started crying. This convinced Elian all the more that he should come home and whisk me away to the ER immediately. I was upset for ruining guys' night. I was afraid we were overreacting. I didn't want Elian rushing home to get me, risking his life by driving way too fast and running red lights for a silly burn. But, I finally consented and waited on him.
It was 8 PM by the time he got home. His dad and brother came over to keep Lexi while we went to the ER. On a side note, one annoying thing about living in Olive Branch is there is no hospital. It takes between 25 and 45 minutes, depending on traffic, to get to the nearest Baptist hospital. Which does not comfort me in any way. When one of my children is gushing blood from her head, I don't want to have to strap her into her car seat and listen to her scream as I hit every red light on Goodman/302 or Riverdale, depending on which hospital I choose. Not only would her screaming be extremely annoying, she'd probably bleed to death before we got to the hospital.
Anyway, we chose to go to the Southaven hospital. We'd never been there before and traffic was light. There was no wait in the ER, either! They took me right back, put me in a comfy chair, and gave me the remote to turn on the NBA Playoffs. The doctor came back, was casual about the burn, and told me it was a 2nd degree burn. She had the nurse clean it out and apply an antibacterial cream to prevent infection. They bandaged me up and sent me home with the cream so I could continue to apply it until the sight of my disfigured arm no longer freaks Lexi out.
I still don't know if we overreacted. We asked the doctor what she thought, and she gave the stock I-don't-want-to-get-sued answer, "Well, if you were in pain and were concerned, you needed to be seen."
As they discharged me less than 2 hrs after I had entered the hospital (that's an ER record, right?), we remembered that our ER copay, which used to be $100, had sky-rocketed to $250 when our insurance renewed in February. Doh!
What little first aid I do know includes that burns should be placed under running cool water as soon as possible. I went to the sink and did that, observing that this was the worst burn I'd ever had. It wasn't just red. It wasn't just a closed blister. I had totally burned the skin off, exposing a bright white layer of live flesh I had never seen before. Hmm. The total burn was two inches long but less than 1 cm wide. The depth concerned me, so I did what any 26 year old would do - I Googled how to treat a burn.
I wish I hadn't.
A long list of articles popped up, and I clicked the first one. The very first sentence talked about how burns need to be treated very quickly in order to prevent further skin damage. SIXTEEN PARAGRAPHS LATER, this article still hadn't told me what those imperative steps were that I should have taken 5 minutes ago. Frustrated, I hit the back button and tried the next few articles. They all agreed with the cool water treatment I had already applied. Then they all agreed that, without a medical background, I needed to assess what degree of burn I had. Each article offered several descriptive terms of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree burns, but I was not confident in my ability to decide if I was staring at a 2nd degree or a 3rd degree burn. Unfortunately, I needed to know that before I could appropriately treat the burn. Plus, each website said conflicting things as to how to treat each type of burn. For instance, some articles told me to put a wet bandage on a 2nd degree burn. Others told me to dry off the area and apply a dry bandage. Some told me to use Neosporin to prevent infection. Some told me not to apply anything, as creams would hold in the burn.
Fifteen minutes had passed since the burn, and I was frustrated. My arm hurt. I was starting to feel nauseous, which totally could have been a coincidence given my current status of super pregnant. So I decided to call Elian and ask him if he would be willing to continue guys' night at our house, just in case I needed him. His instant reaction was, "Kelly, I need to take you to the hospital." I'm not sure if it was just hearing his voice, or if it was hormones, or if it was stress, but as I tried to downplay the seriousness of the burn, I started crying. This convinced Elian all the more that he should come home and whisk me away to the ER immediately. I was upset for ruining guys' night. I was afraid we were overreacting. I didn't want Elian rushing home to get me, risking his life by driving way too fast and running red lights for a silly burn. But, I finally consented and waited on him.
It was 8 PM by the time he got home. His dad and brother came over to keep Lexi while we went to the ER. On a side note, one annoying thing about living in Olive Branch is there is no hospital. It takes between 25 and 45 minutes, depending on traffic, to get to the nearest Baptist hospital. Which does not comfort me in any way. When one of my children is gushing blood from her head, I don't want to have to strap her into her car seat and listen to her scream as I hit every red light on Goodman/302 or Riverdale, depending on which hospital I choose. Not only would her screaming be extremely annoying, she'd probably bleed to death before we got to the hospital.
Anyway, we chose to go to the Southaven hospital. We'd never been there before and traffic was light. There was no wait in the ER, either! They took me right back, put me in a comfy chair, and gave me the remote to turn on the NBA Playoffs. The doctor came back, was casual about the burn, and told me it was a 2nd degree burn. She had the nurse clean it out and apply an antibacterial cream to prevent infection. They bandaged me up and sent me home with the cream so I could continue to apply it until the sight of my disfigured arm no longer freaks Lexi out.
I still don't know if we overreacted. We asked the doctor what she thought, and she gave the stock I-don't-want-to-get-sued answer, "Well, if you were in pain and were concerned, you needed to be seen."
As they discharged me less than 2 hrs after I had entered the hospital (that's an ER record, right?), we remembered that our ER copay, which used to be $100, had sky-rocketed to $250 when our insurance renewed in February. Doh!
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