OUCH!

[Tasan]

Well, what an interesting day I had yesterday. The day started at the early/late hour of midnight, as days do, but to me waking up, screaming in pain. I think to myself, holy hell, who ran in and stabbed me in the side while I was sleeping. Noticing the lack of puncture wound, I run to the bathroom. RIght now I'm thinking okay, what did I eat wrong, and will it just come out my butt at this point. Well, nothing I could do on the toilet would stop the pain, so I sit there and yell for my wife, who is inexplicably sleeping though all this pain induced riot. She finally gets up and we decide to go to the hospital, as she's never seen me like this before in my life. She grabs the kid out of bed, and I stagger to the car, pacing about holding my right abdomen and wincing in pain til my wife got the kid in the car(stupid two door car).

So now she's hauling ass down the road. Now my wife isn't the speeder. She's all of 5'2" and I think I've heard her cuss twice in my life, at me of course. She's really good about staying at the speed limit, all that stuff. I look over and we're going 80 in a 35. I think she got the picture I was trying to paint for her, that I was in dire pain. We are going over the options, and only one seems to fit that we know of. Appendix is going out. I've never even conceived of pain like I was going through at the time, I mean like 50 theives putting 100 knives into my side. We FLY down I45 to the hospital and I stagger in, bare feet and all, and just about colapse at the sign in desk. The nurse calmly starts taking all my info like I'm standing there whistling a tune. Apartently she's used to seeing big guys like me doubled over and crying in pain. Go figure. Anyway, she's all professional and all, takes a good look at me from behind her desk and says "Yep, thats kidney stones all right" WTF....I'm thinking. KIDNEY STONES!?!? Woman do you realized my side is being hacked at by a band of invisible knife fighters??? She gets me to a bed, thankfully avoiding the fairly crowded waiting room. My wife catches up with the kid in tow, and I wait on the gourney, sobbing like a little baby from the pain. A series of people come in, I believe one of them was a doctor, it was hard to tell when you grit your teeth and the vision goes down real bad from the blinding pain. They get me some dimeral going finally, and things start getting loopy, but a goooood loopy. I go it for a cat scan of my belly area, where the tech-in-training(his words) proceeds to screw up my IV and I bleed all over him a bit. Then back to the ER room to wait.

They have to pump me twice more in 4 hours with dimeral because the pain just keeps coming, and after the last shot, the pain finaly kicks down. I sleep and in the morning wake to find this doctor who looks like he was ripped out of an ER episode telling me that I've got a massive kidney stone trying to fit through an infinately smaller pathway. This doctor was quite a picture. Around 35 or so, and stood about 6 feet tall. His arms were RIPPED, and he's sporting a gotee and an earring in his left ear. He then proceeds to tell me what he plans to do to me during the day, all the while mixing in as many f-bombs and shits as he can in the conversation. I just sat there stuptified. I'd never seen a doctor like this before, and my wife is a doctor's kid so I think I've got a pretty good background to work from.

So anyway, the day progresses and they finally get around to working on me some. The proceedure for today is to go in, put stints into pathways in and around my kidney to open up room for this log to pass. And of course, everything has to go in through the most tender of places. Yikes. Thankfully they put me totally under. I awake to find a lot less pain but a weird sensation coming from my kidney area. They tried to take a pot shot a the stone with a laser too, while they were in there, but it was too far up to try. So tomorrow I get the pleasure of going back in for outpatient work, doing some kind of sonic treatment that starts with an L and has a bunch of latin after that.

What a day. So, have any of you guys gone through this before? I swear when I pee, there is a mac truck driving through my back. I really hope that thing tomorrow helps out. This was a totally horrible weekend for it to happen too. Friday, I was supposed to head up to Dallas to see my old high school football team try to advance in the playoffs. Saturday I have relatives I havent' seen in years come in to Dallas for the Cowboys game on Sunday, where all my dad's brothers are going to meet up for the first time in 4 years. All the time, I'll probably be either in the back squiriming in pain or peeing in the restroom. Bleh.

[Neuqua]

Ok, now you got me all scared.

Sorry to hear about all that.

[JeeberD]

Damn Tasan, that really sucks. Hope you feel better soon...

Edit: Hey, if you can't make it can I have your Cowboys ticket? I've had a sore throat so if I called in to work I'm sure they would buy it...

[lighthousekeeper]

This is the weirdest dynasty report I've ever read.

[MikeVic]

.. wow. I really hope I never have to go through that. I'd be scared of that doctor.

[Draft Dodger]

wow - I would have assumed appendix also. man, that doesn't sound like fun at all.

[sabotai]

Congradulations Tasan, you just went through what a woman does when she has a kid. We know you wouldn't have made a good female.

[cody8200]

Sounds very scary. You paint an excellent picture of something I never want to have.

[Glengoyne]

An appendix feels like you have been stabbed in the stomach. Kidney Stones fell like you have been stabbed in the back.

I have never had them, but know quite a few people that have them. Two of these people have had a number of recurring bouts. My father in law, is possibly the toughest SOB I have ever met. He shredded his MCL, and limped around on it for six months before he went to the doctor to have a wound stitched up that he couldn't just super glue away. Since he was there he decided to have the doctor check his "limp". To give you an idea, when his kidney stones first cropped up, he thought it was something in his diet. For close to a year he blamed these painful "attacks" on tomatoes or chocolate or whatever he had eaten. Then he got one that he couldn't just pass. He actually stayed in bed, and THAT was what convinced my mother in law that he needed to go to the hospital. That stone was apparently a rather large specimen. They used ultrasound in an attempt to pound it into peices, In the end they inserted something somewhere things shouldn't be inserted, and pulled the pieces out in a "trap". Luckilly the patient is unconscious for that procedure.

Good Luck, and do keep us posted.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally posted by lighthousekeeper
This is the weirdest dynasty report I've ever read.

Hmm... you must have missed out on this one (link).

[Tasan]

Originally posted by Glengoyne
An appendix feels like you have been stabbed in the stomach. Kidney Stones fell like you have been stabbed in the back.

I'd actually have to disagree with this part of it. I wasn't getting pain on my back til later that afternoon. My first pain was in the front right side.


Okay, now for an update. I'm scheduled for that ultrasound treatment at 2pm central today. I have to report at 11 am though and that has me a little worried. They are going to have me cath'ed, tranq'ed, and with local anestetic. Sounds like fun. I'll be done by 3, but they say I'll have to recover for 2 hours. That makes my high school football game out of the question tonight. It starts at 7:30 and its a 4 hour drive from here. So, if anyone is going to be in Richardson TX and cares to see #2 3A Gilmer take on Celina, let me know, my parents have 2 spare tickets ;- )

And Jeeber, no, you can't have my Cowboys tickets, its going to take more than this to keep me from my annual pilgrimage to the dome-with-a-hole.

[cincyreds]

Do you drink alot of MilK?

Lay off the cow man!

Hope you feel better soon.

[detroit_fan]

feel for you man. I go to the hospital at least once a year with kidney stones. I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.

[mrskippy]

All that prep for an ultrasound.

I had one to check for ulcers/tumors/stomach cancer ...

All I had to do was not eat or drink, take some laxatives, and drain my stomach. I didn't have to show up that early, other than to register and sign a waiver.

The procedure itself was painless. They rub some gel on your abdomen. A cute technician did the procedure.

When it was done, I was free to feast and feast I did.

[korme]

Aren't they from drinking a lot of pop, or something odd?

[Huckleberry]

Pop. What a silly word. Silly yankees.

[mrskippy]

I'm in Calfornia. Therefore a Yankee. And I call it soda. Not pop.

[JeeberD]

Californians are Yankees???

[cuervo72]

Repeat after me: so-da. So-da. Soda.

[Bonegavel]

The term you are referring to excludes California:

Main Entry: 1Yan·kee 
Pronunciation: 'ya[ng]-kE
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1758
1 a : a native or inhabitant of New England b : a native or inhabitant of the northern U.S.

[Bonegavel]

dola,

the other definition:

2 : a native or inhabitant of the U.S.

wouldn't fit, since that would make location in the U.S. irrelevant.

[mrskippy]

northern U.S.

OK. It's a stretch. But in 1861, at the time of the Civil War, California was part of the Union and therefore would technically be considered a "Northern" state ... hence my use of the word Yankee.

[Bonegavel]

regardless, I am from Pennsylvania (definitely a Yank) and we call it soda here.

[Eaglesfan27]

Sounds like they might be doing a Lithroscopy on you tomorrow? If so, that should take care of the problem, but watch out for pyelonephritis which is an infection of the kidney after the procedure. If you develop any significant fever (over 100.4 degrees) call your doctor ASAP. Good luck with the procedure.

[mrskippy]

And to those who may question that the California was/wasn't part of the Union and participated in the Civil War:

http://members.aol.com/bgandersen/civ_war/

[Bonegavel]

I have found pop to be a mid-western US term for flavored carbonated water. Please don't slur all us yanks with your trash talk about terms.

[Tasan]

Originally posted by Eaglesfan27
Sounds like they might be doing a Lithroscopy on you tomorrow? If so, that should take care of the problem, but watch out for pyelonephritis which is an infection of the kidney after the procedure. If you develop any significant fever (over 100.4 degrees) call your doctor ASAP. Good luck with the procedure.

Thats exactly what they did to me. Interesting procedure actually. You can't eat or drink from midnight til after the procedure, and I think thats mainly because the anestetic they use can cause nausea, and they don't want you puking all over the place. They keep you awake during it, but in this foggy, supposedly pain free state. You get on this table that has a molded form for a butt and back, and they have you kinda lay in that. They then put some water between your back and the table. After that, they start pounding the table with ever increasing hits from something that felt like a screwdriver, right along where they think the stone is. This is supposed to cause sonic waves to break up the stone. Well, the anestetic didn't work that great and I found I could count each and every one of the hits, and they didn't feel that great at all. After I think around 500 or so hits (it may have been more or a little less, it did get a little foggy for a few minutes) and 50 minutes, I was done. I felt better, so I think they accomplished breaking up that bad boy some. My back hurts now though, and it still hurts some to pee, but overall its a lot less pain. And they gave me a script for Vicodin, so that'll help a lot

Anyway, I hope this is somewhat readable, the drugs are making it hard to get coherent thoughts out. I love my wife, she's been so great during all this, and she can generally figure out what my sometimes incoherent ramblings mean.

So anyway, thanks to all for the well wishes and everything, and I'll let you know how this all winds up. And to cincyreds, I did hear that excessive milk drinkage might cause this, but thats just not me. I really want to know whats causing this. I have a feeling that they'll put me on some kind of diet though, and honestly I could use it. This will be a good excuse for me to lose some weight. And detroit_fan, quit scaring me like that! I really don't want to go through this again!

Later

[tucker342]

We call it pop in the midwest....

but anyways, Tasan, wow that must really suck.... I couldn't imagine going through that.....

What are Kidney Stones caused by?

[Tasan]

Originally posted by tucker342
What are Kidney Stones caused by?

From my ever increasing understanding of the subject, they really can't pin it on one thing. Milk and milk products are a large percent of the cases, but lots of people still have them not linked to milk. If you can catch pieces of it as it passes, they test them to try to find the answer.

I really don't think milk products are the answer for me, but it might be. I'm not a heavy milk drinker, but I do like my cheese. I'm guessing though, they'll pin this on all the general fattyness of my diet, and tell me to lose weight or face the wrath of the mighty stone again.

I now will cower in fear of that possibility.

[Eaglesfan27]

There are multiple types of kidney stones. Some are calcified kidney stones in which milk products might play a part in the pathogenesis of their existence. Others are not calcified and do not appear to be caused by any dairy products. The best defense against kidney stones is plenty of hydration (and not with things that are actually diuretics such as beer or diet soda, but things which actually hydrate such as water.) If you drink the recommended 8 glasses of water a day, you are much less likely to get a kidney stone.

[Glengoyne]

Originally posted by mrskippy
All that prep for an ultrasound.

I had one to check for ulcers/tumors/stomach cancer ...

All I had to do was not eat or drink, take some laxatives, and drain my stomach. I didn't have to show up that early, other than to register and sign a waiver.

The procedure itself was painless. They rub some gel on your abdomen. A cute technician did the procedure.

When it was done, I was free to feast and feast I did.

That was an imaging type ultrasound. That process is like sonar/radar. Tasan is going to have an ultrasound process done where energy(ultrasonic waves?) are focused on a very precise point to breakup the kidney stones. The waves pass harmlessly through the rest of your tissue, but are powerful enough to pretty much break any bone in your body if they were focused maliciously. At least I think that is how it works. I really only know what friends have passed on about what was done to them.

[Tasan]

A quick update on all this, for those interested. Thanksgiving and all that comes with that went okay as things were passing. Sleeping was uncomfortable with the stent in. Nights between the recliner and the bed were rather restless. Anyway, today I went back to the doctor to have the stent removed. I now know why they put these things in there.

So you will try everything you can to avoid ever having one put back in, and then taken out.

Now, I had done some reading and had heard that it can be uncomfortable when they remove the stent, especially as it passes the prostate on the way out. Understatement of all time.

They start by putting this numbing gel in mr. happy. And thats all the pain relief you get. I deline to watch the doc doing his job, and he directs me to watch the tv, as its showing an interesting picture from this scope he's just jammed in there. All of this is feeling uncomfortable already, but there is just no real pain, just a weird sensation. I watch on the tv as they probe around in there, and they find the string. You see, there is a string they leave in your penis so they can pull everything out. I watch as he uses these grabber things and tries and misses the string on the first shot. The second time, he grabs the string and I feel a pinch. Ouch.

Then he pulls.





Holy mother of god



I'm not one to cuss, and I definately don't go around screaming the f word, but at that moment a "Oh FUCK" came rushing out.

He stops, I think its done, and he pulls again.




Wow


And then it was done. Imagine what it would feel like for someone to go up through your penis, grab your intestines, and rip them out through there, and I'm pretty sure you'd get the picture. Oh and now, on top of that, it feels like I'm pissing fireballs when I pee. He assured me the pain should go away today, and the pain in my side should go down in the next couple of days. I sure hope so.

Moral of this whole story, drink lots of water daily. You have been warned.

[Huckleberry]

Well, I'm obviously from Texas, and down here in God's country we call everything coke. "Could you get me a coke? Dr. Pepper if they have it."

I have changed my ways, after much personal anguish, to ask for soda in restaurants. Too many of you yankees moving down here.

[AnalBumCover]

Originally posted by Tasan
Holy mother of god

I'm just cringing at the thought of such pain...

[MrBug708]

Ouch indeed

It could be worse though. You could be giving birth to shrimp

[Eaglesfan27]

Or a Colossal Squid.