How It Started
Back at the end of August last year, my doctor sent me for some x-rays on my ribs (I broke two back in 2023 and was still having some issues) and they noticed a kidney stone on the x-ray.
She referred me to urology and the urologist said since it was just sitting in the middle of my kidney1 and wasn’t causing me any problems and nobody even knew it was there (or for how long), we’d just leave it alone unless it became a problem.
How It’s Going
Well, yesterday it decided to become a problem.
We have an adjustable bed2, and sometimes we sleep with the head up a bit. Usually it ends up bothering one of our backs in the middle night if it’s up to high, so we ask the other if it’s ok to go flat. Around 5 in the morning I asked Melissa if that was cool, she said yes, and I hit the button on the remote to go flat.
It was near instant pain. Not like, normal “oh I slept in a weird position pain”, but like… PAIN.
I could not get comfortable no matter what I tried and had cold sweats and threw up a couple of times. I squirmed around for an hour or so trying to get into a position where it wasn’t awful and it finally subsided and I went back to sleep.
I woke up at around 9:30 for work feeling ok, but around 10:15 or so I could feel the pain starting to build up and come back again. I texted Melissa at work, and she left to come take me to urgent care or the ER.
Unfortunately, by the time she got home, all of the symptoms were gone again. I had no pain, the sweats stopped, and I was able to get some work done3. I sent her back to work against her protests and continued working.
A little after 5 PM I could feel the pain coming back again. This was bad, because since Melissa had to go back to work, she had to stay late to finish treating patients she couldn’t see earlier while she was home. This also meant that I had to pick up her girls from their after school program because she couldn’t make it in time.
The pain was pretty excruciating at this point, but I made it to the school, got the girls, and had Melissa meet me at urgent care to pick them up. I wasn’t at urgent care very long – they told me to go to the ER when they heard my symptoms and pain level. I called Melissa on my way home and she drove me to the ER.
When I described my symptoms and pain to the ER doc, he immediately suggested it might be the kidney stone causing it and ordered a CT. They gave me some Toradol and wanted to give me Fentanyl, but I refused since the pain was starting to come down4.
The CT showed the stone had moved out of my kidney and was sitting in my upper urinary tract and it moving was where the pain was coming from.
The good news was that it wasn’t blocking anything and I didn’t have an infection or trouble urinating so they gave me a prescription for oxycodone and sent me home.
Now What?
I called Urology this morning and was able to get an appointment for 8:30 AM on Tuesday (of course it’s a long holiday weekend for Memorial Day here in the US, because why wouldn’t it be?) where I’ll find out next steps.
The likely scenario is surgery on Thursday or Friday. The stone is big (1.3cm) and I’m going to push for removing it laparoscopically instead of breaking it up and giving me a stent. I don’t want to deal with pieces or have the chance it doesn’t all come out, I just want them to go in there and get it the fuck out.
The Worst Part
I’m supposed to fly to Portland on June 2nd because one of my twins is graduating high school a year early on the 3rd. Depending on what is decided on Tuesday, it’s likely I will have to cancel my trip. The thought of that breaks my heart and I’m trying to not stress too much about it until I know more, but the odds do not appear to be in my favor.
Unless I develop a fever or the inability to urinate this weekend and end up back in the ER, I’ll know more on Tuesday morning.
😩
- It was still in the middle of my kidney when I had a CT on my ribs a month ago.
- A Nectar. Highly recommend.
- Of course this happened on release day of our latest software update at work and I had a million site changes to merge and deploy for release.
- When I got to the ER, it was an 8 or 9 out of 10. By the time I laid there getting the IV and fluids and the meds, it was down to about a 2.