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This Too Shall Pass (I Hope)
Sep. 12th, 2022 05:37 pmI like to believe that I have a reasonably high pain tolerance.
I can maintain that belief right up until the time when a kidney stone says, "Ha! Let me show you about pain." And that's when I go flying right over the limit. I have described the level of pain from a kidney stone as a 9 on the 10 point scale. This usually gets a response of "Only a 9?" "Yes, because 10 is slipping on the ice and destroying two knee ligaments."
Now that's true, but the thing about the knee ligaments is that once you destroy them, they stop hurting at level 10 and proceed on down to something much more tolerable. The kidney stone is not so kind. It hunkers down, blocking important ducts, and produces that lovely level 9 pain for hours at a time.
We got to the ER yesterday a bit after 1 PM. Unfortunately, they were backed up badly, so it was about three hours until I got into a bed, although they were able to get my vitals and set up for an IV. By that time, the kidney stone had moved to somewhere less miserable than it had been for the preceding four hours. The doctor thought that a CT scan to confirm things would be a fine idea and I could hardly disagree. And a liter of fluids was ordered up, because I was still dehydrated from the previous day's Revenge of the Colon.
The problem was that one of the two CT scanners in the hospital was down. Oops. And every time that an ambulance came in, it was quite likely that whoever was in there -- justifiably! -- had a better claim on the working CT scanner than I did.
The good news was that the longer I stayed there, the better I felt. Wherever Mr. Stone was, he had decided that he was no longer going to clog up the works for the moment.
It wasn't until around 8:30 that I finally got the CT scan which confirmed the presence of the stone. Around 9:30, I was finally discharged with instructions to drink a lot and see a urologist. These were good instructions. I am in favor of them.
Gretchen took me across the street to Portillo's for dinner. After ordering, I proceeded to the men's room, because that's just what my aging bladder prefers to do given an opportunity.
And *something* came flying out into the urinal that wasn't urine. It vanished under the splash guard in the urinal and I decided that it could stay there.
I am hoping it was my kidney stone.
I guess we'll see.
I can maintain that belief right up until the time when a kidney stone says, "Ha! Let me show you about pain." And that's when I go flying right over the limit. I have described the level of pain from a kidney stone as a 9 on the 10 point scale. This usually gets a response of "Only a 9?" "Yes, because 10 is slipping on the ice and destroying two knee ligaments."
Now that's true, but the thing about the knee ligaments is that once you destroy them, they stop hurting at level 10 and proceed on down to something much more tolerable. The kidney stone is not so kind. It hunkers down, blocking important ducts, and produces that lovely level 9 pain for hours at a time.
We got to the ER yesterday a bit after 1 PM. Unfortunately, they were backed up badly, so it was about three hours until I got into a bed, although they were able to get my vitals and set up for an IV. By that time, the kidney stone had moved to somewhere less miserable than it had been for the preceding four hours. The doctor thought that a CT scan to confirm things would be a fine idea and I could hardly disagree. And a liter of fluids was ordered up, because I was still dehydrated from the previous day's Revenge of the Colon.
The problem was that one of the two CT scanners in the hospital was down. Oops. And every time that an ambulance came in, it was quite likely that whoever was in there -- justifiably! -- had a better claim on the working CT scanner than I did.
The good news was that the longer I stayed there, the better I felt. Wherever Mr. Stone was, he had decided that he was no longer going to clog up the works for the moment.
It wasn't until around 8:30 that I finally got the CT scan which confirmed the presence of the stone. Around 9:30, I was finally discharged with instructions to drink a lot and see a urologist. These were good instructions. I am in favor of them.
Gretchen took me across the street to Portillo's for dinner. After ordering, I proceeded to the men's room, because that's just what my aging bladder prefers to do given an opportunity.
And *something* came flying out into the urinal that wasn't urine. It vanished under the splash guard in the urinal and I decided that it could stay there.
I am hoping it was my kidney stone.
I guess we'll see.