I have been in labor ever since.
Though this pain was theoretically localized in the appropriate urological parts, its influence was and is currently being felt all over.
I keep a list of current medications in my wallet and my picture ID and my insurance cards are not hard to find.
I should have called the ambulance 5 hours sooner than I did, but thinking this unknown pain would abate on its own was wrong.
It is a guy thing - a stupid guy thing.
I did not have a fever, I was just bent like a failed piece of origami. I had been vomiting and had experienced diarrhea. The little management medications I have on hand for my arthritis and migraines were as effective for this pain episode as sugar sprinkles on a birthday cake.
Something was really wrong and it was time for the blue and orange-light special.
I lived past the speed humps and potholes to see check-in and triage and the fact that I was already in the system from my cancer treatment 5 years ago and the fact I handed them my list of medications helped but the fact that I that I kept repeating, "I need to stretch out." and, "I need to lie down." did not register with the triage technician or keep her from placing me back in a wheelchair that put my body into a series of 90 degree angles and more pain-generating positions.
The seat of the wheelchair was saggy, meaning it also crowded together all of my organs that were already in distress.
They then typed my medication list into their computer using the seek and thee shall find method of typing. She typed at about a 10 letter-a-minute rate.
I was weighed - standing up. I was put back into the wheelchair of renewed agony. I was given a sheet of paper, my flow-sheet, and a wrist bracelet ID with me sweating and holding in my groans and trying to go to a deep place where pain could not bother me (the Zen exercise did not work).
Then, the nausea came. There was nothing but bile left in my stomach - but that drew no attention.
Finally, "Mr. Johnson" was called.
I was wheeled (still in a wheel-chair) to MY cotton-walled, private (1 handkerchief thin wall of poly-cotton) Healing Holy of Holies.
I got my standard-issue split-tail gown and, surprisingly, was allowed to keep wearing my Hanes boxer briefs. My BP, heart-rate and identity was confirmed about 5 times, all very good things and comforting if I had died - they would have known the name of the corpse.
BUT I WAS FINALLY LYING DOWN.
Fluids were coming, so my normally too big veins took their cue and played - HIDE from the nurse.
The extra-gifted phlebotomist was called on and found a good vein and I was close to getting some relief.
A cocktail to deal with the nausea and the pain was administered. I was hoping for lights OUT - but I did get relief from the intense pain and nausea.
I had to produce some urine for the lab. Not easy when you are horizontal and you are doing this for a PROJECT.
I needed the assistance of gravity and the nurse reluctantly agreed to lower the side of the bed and let me ease my feet to the floor. Drugs, feet, floor? Whatever?
Now realize something. When your body is doped, so are your kidneys and everything to do with them.
It is hard to perform on command, especially when in a foreign space and when your target and firing mechanism is being held by your own two unsteady hands.
My brain was considering the alternative method of collecting urine and with this motive in my partially functioning mind we had flow. Not the kind of flow that was once used to erode banks of shale or water in pine seedlings, but enough to please my nurse and satisfy the needs of the lab.
My nurse was happy and I got an extra blanket to cover my eyes from the fluorescent lights ... And then ...
Time for a CT scan. This meant MOVING. Moving over hundreds of unevenly laid tiles and in and out of some elevators. Bouncing MY parts that were still in pain.
Need I mention that gurneys do not have shock absorbers? The wheels for my gurney must have been recycled from the rejected wheels at the Piggly-Wiggly, Food Lion, Harris Teeter and the K-Mart. They had been balanced and mounted by the Keystone Kops.
If we had gone much further to the CT scan lithotripsy would have been a moot point.
My gurney was not the gurney they used in the CT room so I had to move from one bed to the next and back. Joy!
We learned that the kidney stone (4mm) had moved from the kidney (that would make it a Rolling Stone) and was on it's way OUT to the bladder - but not totally committed to its escape.
Tomorrow afternoon I see my urologist - the same prince that helped with my cancer care. He really is the best. I am taking him hand warmers. He has small, knowing hands, as well as a compassionate heart.
If this were a baby, its movements would be celebrated - I am living in anxiety because I can feel every tiny tumble. We are trying to catch the thing.
Come, batta, batta. Come to papa!
My two new constant companions are nausea and pain. They are of a sort I have never had before. A third new friend is my strainer. Just in case the thing passes, we want to catch it and do an analysis of it and stop eating and drinking the things that make them appear the stones appear.
Won't that look cool? A stretchy necklace for my strainer? Plus, a 4mm stone of honor.
I appreciate the prayers you have said for me for the successful resolution of this issue.
Something is now taking a tumble. Gotta GO! Maybe something will come of this after all. "Papa has a rollin stone ..." © tim
tim@timjohnsonphoto.com
