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Nova Terra

~ Just another way of stalling on my other writing

Nova Terra

Tag Archives: kidney stones

In the Hospital: Tiny Blessings

09 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by lionsofmercy in Blog

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Tags

blessings, home, hospital, kidney stones, pee

So there I was, having what might most delicately be called Pee Issues. Cranberry juice didn’t help, and I was starting to feel really run down. I figured the latter to be a) lingering depression over Not Moving, and/or b) fatigue from Finally Moving last weekend, both exacerbated by the stress of having Comcast screw up transferring my Internet service for over a week. But they turned it on at last, and I still felt every bit as crappy, and besides . . . Pee Issues . . . so I did what my urology team told me to do like a good girl and popped into the ER yesterday.

My expectation was to be seen promptly and sent home with a prescription for some Macrobid for a run-of-the-mill bladder infection. One out of two ain’t bad–I have a groovy ER and my butt didn’t even touch a waiting room seat. But part of the grooviness included a conscientious doctor who had recently seen somebody with my exact presentation (urine clean, but a stone is [painlessly] blocking my right kidney somewhat) take a turn for the worse and get very, very sick. And the worst part is that I myself have been very, very sick. Twice. (I’m a kidney stone gravel pit. Had ’em for my entire adult life, although for years they masqueraded as Mysterious Female Problems, as “women don’t get kidney stones” was long the prevailing belief–until only a decade or so ago, in fact.)

Goethe’s wife died of pyelo, I hear, and he had to spend three days in the kitchen listening to her scream. And in my own experience it does count as “no sheep, really sheeping sick.” So I didn’t really want to argue with her, and here I am in the hospital. And although I know the symptoms of pyelo and they would have scared me into making a beeline back here, maybe it’s just as well.

They gave me a bolus of a strong IV antibiotic, and I swear I’m feeling better already, despite a special hospital Night in Hell: At around 11p, they admitted a 97-year-old lady with mild dementia and apparently no bladder control over even more pee than I make. They spent all night changing her bed, trying to get her on the bedpan, and cleaning her up (which made her screech like a parrot). And by all night I mean about hourly.

So this morning I am counting my blessings, which I habitually do in the hospital:

Yeah, I make many little trips, but making them hooked up to an IV pump and fitting it into a bathroom the size of an average stall added to the challenge of the night. I’m currently not hooked up, and going on such a plebian trip solo is a big treat.

So is finally being put in the johnnies (one front, one back) meant for BIG people,  so I don’t feel strait-jacketed. I guess I’m fatter than I look or something; don’t know why they didn’t start me in ’em. But I yowled a bit about it when made to take the hospital’s extremely hot shower, and now I am steam-cleaned with full shoulder movement. Bliss!

My hospital has wifi, and my very nice daughter schlepped in my laptop so I can blog to you, watch Netflix, and maybe even work a little.

And blessing the greatest: They’re letting me go home today (albeit with prescriptions and the usual command to drink tons of water) And I have a home to go to. This has been made particularly meaningful after yesterday in the ER, watching an endless stream of street people being carried in with hypothermia. We have adequate emergency shelter in Cambridge/Boston, so most of these folks are the hardcore who are on the street by choice. Chronics make me sad–I spend much of my life invested in my own mental health and that of others; I have to believe that they can recover too, but they have to make the choice themselves.

I chose. Blessing!

 

Pain

04 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by lionsofmercy in Blog

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Tags

Boston, fireworks, kidney stones, martyrdom, pain, sprained ankle, trauma

Five weeks ago I gave myself a brutal sprained ankle, with the upshot that I’m not going to be going to the fireworks tonight–there’s still some residual inflammation, and the two miles would do me in. Hell, I’d be done in when I got there, and I don’t know if that beautiful rumble in my chest would pump out enough serotonin to compensate for the weedy little voice inside whining, “When do I get to sit do-o-own?” We live close enough to the action that we’ll be able to hear them–not loudly enough–but not see them at all. Which makes it worse.

(Hmm, what if I take one of my crutches . . .? What if I just open up a big #10 can of get-over-it?)

I also have arthritis in my knees, and I seem to recall this keeping me home last year. This is unfair, seeing as I got my magic cortisone shots this week, and all that hurts are these two or three acid-dipped rubber bands running up the inside of my lower calf. I’d love to go; to take my son, who is new to the Big City and Real Fireworks (set off by professionals who do not get their heads blown off). But there it is: I’m a wussy. There’s only so much soldiering through I can do.

The thing about this is that I’m a pain champion. Screw that tired labor/childbirth stuff (which I escaped via cesarean, therefore sullying my resume)–I get repeated kidney stones! (Women swear they’re worse, and I’ve lost count–probably 30ish, with two serious kidney infections to boot.) And I once had a bowel obstruction. I wanted to go to my emergency room, so at 5 am (thinking I just had a kidney stone, because that was how acute the pain was) I walked half a mile to the subway, changed trains, endured the longest 5 minute cab ride of my life, and showed up able to get the concepts “kidney stone” and “puking NOW” across. I get migraines! Champion, I tell you!

I suppose it’s the particular sort of pain–you can grit your teeth against a constant agony. Work on your breathing. Advice: don’t overdo this. I once had a stone obstruct (no good very bad life threatening) and the blob of clay I saw sent me home accusing me of “drug-seeking.” (N.B.: I wanted Toradol, which does nothing interesting to you at all.) I just wasn’t showing enough pain. In vain did I tell her that I had learned the hard way that crying doesn’t give the nice people in the E.R. the information they need. Letter in her file. Heh.

But when every step sends a needle of fire up my leg I whimper like the sissy little girl I really am. And it’s almost healed now, too. You should have seen me a couple of weeks ago, with the kids waiting on me and trying not to glare at the men who didn’t give me their seats on the train. (Five times out of six, seat-givers are women.)

I am, of course, no stranger to psychic pain, and I’ve had a boatload of that too. Sometimes I soldier, sometimes I whimper. Sometimes I try to figure out if watching all that CSI means I might not get caught, bwah ha.

But fireworks have always made it better. I was in the hospital in Indianapolis once (hyperemesis with daughter, sigh) and they had a huge window overlooking the river where they were setting them off. Best fireworks seat ever; mood a trifle dampened by it being in a cancer surgical ward; been puking for four days straight–all day–but . . . fireworks, man!

How much can it possibly hurt?

Nova Terra

just another way of stalling on my other writing

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