Kidney Stones are the DEVIL

Hello friends. Before I write anything, you all should know by now that I'm not super awesome at censoring my blog posts so here's your TMI warning. :-)

So ever since I got pregnant the only discomforts I've had are a couple bladder infections, which are extremely annoying but overall not too horrid (although when I have one I might say otherwise). I never had any morning sickness or vomiting and in general have felt pretty darn good thus far. So when I woke up feeling like I had a bladder infection the Friday before Thanksgiving, I didn't think much of it...I still had a prescription for antibiotics so I filled it and went about my day.

That night I woke up around midnight with a bit of pain in my back and side, which I found odd. I got up went to the bathroom...and WOW did that hurt. The pain didn't subside so I took some Tylenol and started pacing around the apartment. I don't know why I paced, I guess I just didn't know what else to do. A couple hours later when it hadn't gotten better I texted my sister, who's a registered nurse, hoping she was awake and at work (she works the graveyard shift at the hospital). She never responded (I looked at my phone the next day and realized that in my painful agony I had texted her home phone #, not her cell...*special*) so I figured she wasn't working that night and continued pacing. Around 4:00am the pain had become so intense I could barely walk. I remembered that my health insurance inculdes a 24-hr nurse hotline so I called it and the RN who answered, after asking a bunch of questions about my condition, advised me to seek medical assistance as soon as possible. So I woke Jacob up and he drove us to the ER (and can I just complain for a sec...there is a hospital literally 3 minutes from my house but it's not in network so we had to drive 10 minutes to the one that is...which doesn't seem like a huge deal, except the fact that I was in so much pain every little bump in the road made me want to die). They took a urine sample, placed an IV and the doctor said it sounded like a kidney stone.

Um, what? A kidney stone? That was not what I wanted to hear. You always hear about how horribly painful they are and while I actually have a pretty high tolerance for pain, I would rather not deal with it if I can avoid it. Just saying.

Anyway, after pumping my veins full of painkillers and anti-nausea medication (which made me delightfully groggy), they sent me home with a prescription for percocet and instructions to drink lots of water and wait for the stone to pass. I wasn't convinced I had a kidney stone, but did as I was instructed. I drank a ton of water and took it easy for the next couple days, and I figured I must have passed it on Sunday night because on Monday I woke up feeling just fine...which was a relief because we were leaving the next morning for Washington to spend Thanksgiving with Jacob's family.

So yeah, we drove to Washington and although the trip there was awful (see my previous post...stupid snow...), I still felt fine. Yeah, that was short-lived. I woke up at 6:00 the next morning and the pain was back. Goooooodie. I popped a percocet and started chugging as much water as I could...and I paced. By 8:00 it hadn't gotten any better and I was actually starting to get really nauseated. I began freaking out because I didn't want Jacob's family to see me pacing around in my pajamas and trying not to cry. Yeah, well, they did. Around 9:00 I decided maybe taking a hot shower would help (how??? No idea...) and once I got in I realized my leg was swollen...the leg that was on the same side as the pain. That freaked me out even more. So after my shower (which totally didn't help) I called my sister, who told me it was possible that the kidney stone was completely blocking the tube from the kidney to the bladder and I needed to go back to the hospital.

DAMNIT.

I told Jacob and off we went. The drive to the hospital closest to my in-laws' house is WAY longer than the drive to the hospital here (we're talking 20 minutes at least)...it felt like a freaking eternity.

After we FINALLY got there, I gave yet another urine sample, they got me checked in and in a bed, a nurse came and took all my info...then we waited. And waited. And I had to get up to pee a lot because I'd chugged so much water. It was horrible. The pain I felt while I was peeing was 10 times worse than the pain when I wasn't. I literally had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming, it hurt so badly.

By now it was about 11:00am and although my nurse had said they were going to start an IV and give me some pain meds, he was nowhere to be found and I was getting more panicked by the minute. The pain became so intense I couldn't stop myself from shaking (you know how they ask you to rate your pain on a scale from 1-10? I was definitely at a 10)...finally Jacob decided enough was enough and went to find someone to yell at. Apparently my nurse had taken his lunch break and the nurse who was supposed to be covering for him forgot about me. After Jacob chewed her out a bit she took a blood sample, placed my IV and I finally got some relief.

Eventually the ER doc came in and told me there was no infection found in my urine but that blood showed that my potassium was too low and white blood cell count was too high so they were going to hook me up to a heart monitor and give me an ultrasound of my kidneys to see what they could find. She said it sounded like a kidney stone but they wanted to check everything out. The ultrasound revealed 2 kidney stones...1 in each kidney...but kidney stones in your kidneys don't hurt you...it's when they move out of the kidneys that it becomes painful. My uterus was blocking where the tube connects to my bladder so they couldn't see if there was stone there as well. Because of my white blood cell count they were nervous about my appendix, which they also couldn't see because of my uterus...so they decided that since I couldn't have a CAT scan I needed an MRI.

I can see how claustrophobic people would flip out while getting an MRI but I was so exhausted at that point that I thought it was kind of nice to be strapped to the table thing, shoved into a giant camera and told not to move for half an hour. Having to hold my breath for 30 seconds at a time while they were taking pictures was kind of annoying but overall I was just so happy to not be in pain I didn't even care.

Anyway, the MRI revealed that my appendix was fine but they still couldn't see if there was another stone b/c once again, my uterus was in the way. Everyone who saw the results told me the babies were really cute though. :-) The urologist explained that she thought there really was a kidney stone blocking everything and so they were going to keep me overnight, pump a shitload of fluid into me and hope that it passed. She said if that didn't work we'd have to look at putting a tube in my back to drain the urine that was backed up. Awesome. I was a bit surprised that they were keeping me overnight, but I was also grateful b/c I knew being there meant being able to manage my pain and also that my babies would be carefully monitored.

After the MRI I saw a perinatologist and got to have an ultrasound of the babies (where we actually found out for sure that they're both boys) to make sure they were ok, which they were. The doctor assured me that the pain meds they were giving me weren't hurting the babies at all, and the most important thing was for me to be comfortable b/c me being in that much pain can put stress on the babies.

So yeah, then they took me to my room (which was honestly bigger and nicer than some hotels I've stayed in), set me up with some antibiotics and more pain meds in my IV (I had my own button that I could push to administer medication when I needed it...soooo nice!) and then Jacob's family dropped by for a visit. The doctor FINALLY gave me the ok to eat, so my father-in-law ran and got me some chicken mcnuggets (I crave them all the time) and a slurpee, which was the best meal I've ever eaten haha. The nurses came in to monitor the babies' heartbeats so Jacob's family got to hear them, which was pretty cool.

After everyone left Jacob and I were both pretty wiped out...they had a nice couch/bed for Jacob to sleep on so he could stay with me...so we went to sleep. Then around midnight I got up to use the bathroom and low and behold, I passed the stone (they gave me this lovely strainer thing to pee in...so fun). I called the nurse to have her check and make sure, and she was so impressed by the size of it that she called in all the other nurses to have a look. I can't remember the last time I've felt that relieved.

And fortunately my white blood cell count was back to normal the next day so they let me go and we were able to spend Thanksgiving w/Jacob's family instead of in the hospital, which would have been a bummer.

So now (and for the remainder of my pregnancy)...I drink buckets of water, I avoid consuming too much calcium, and I've pretty much given up colas (doc says I can still drink stuff like ginger ale and Sprite so I can somewhat feed my carbonated beverage addiction haha). Here's to hoping the next time I'm in a hospital is when I'm having my babies...and hopefully I won't have to ever go back after that!!