Well well well, look at me failing again. It’s been an up-and-down past several weeks, and now that we’re nearing the end of the year, the hustle-bustle between work and life is ramping up and keeping me from having the energy from posting on here but I refuse to be defeated!

“If you follow me on Twitter” (maybe that’s how I should start every post now) you may have seen in mid-October, a picture of me laying in a gurney in the emergency room. If not, let’s catch up here:

That fateful Monday morning, I dragged my ass out of bed and reluctantly started to get ready for work, as per usual. When I got up from bed, I felt a weird pain in my lower back, which I attributed to simply sleeping in the wrong position as I sometimes do from time to time. I went to the bathroom to wash the sleep away from my face, and upon bending over the sink (to also stretch my back), the weird pain quickly traveled to my left side. I thought I’d just lay down and stretch it out, but when I looked at the clock (6:30) and realized I had been laying down for half an hour, I knew something wasn’t right.

The pain was intensifying, so I googled my symptoms into my phone and learned none of the five results seemed life threatening. Ok good, then I don’t need to call 9-1-1. So what exactly was it?

At 6:45 I decided there was no way I was going to work if I couldn’t even get dressed. After calling an advice nurse who suspected it might be kidney stones, my manager to say work was a no-go, and my parents to come drive 20 minutes to pick me up and take me to the emergency room, the pain kicked into high gear and became excruciating. I started salivating. I thought I might throw up, but with my entire left side in pain, I couldn’t possibly bring myself to hurl. I could barely walk, let alone stand up straight. I forced myself to crawl back to bed and lay on my back, breathing as calmly as I could until my parents arrived. Kidney stones? The only thing I knew about them was that episode of Friends when Joey has them while Phoebe is giving birth to triplets.

It was a pathetically looking scene when my parents arrived and helped me out of my apartment to get to the hospital. Let’s just say as soon as my cheek touched my mom’s shoulder, I cried like a baby. The pain was the worst I’ve ever felt in my life. After two straight hours of not letting up, the pain finally subsided by the time I crawled onto that gurney.

What is kidney stone pain like? It starts out as mere discomfort, then almost immediately it hits you hard and makes you hate life. It’s like when you have a muscle cramp in your calf, but apply that to your entire left side, and multiply it by a thousand. And it doesn’t go away after a few minutes. It lingers. It taunts you. And when you find out it’s caused by a tiny little thing traveling down from your kidney to your bladder, you’re so astounded by the ratio of stone size to pain intensity that you wanna flip a table over. Ladies, if you’ve ever had painful menstrual cramps, kidney stone pain is more intense. I always thought childbirth would be my highest threshold of pain (not like I’ve birthed a child yet) but after asking a friend of mine who has given birth and experienced this kind of pain to compare the two, she said, “I would rather have twelve more children than go through that kidney pain again.”

Mother of craaaaap!

Ok 1) if I’ve survived kidney stone pain (and since mid-October, I’ve experienced the pain two more times: the night before Thanksgiving and the morning after, how thoughtful of it), then I at least feel better about ever giving birth. And 2) I’m a little bummed because I always thought childbirth is the one thing we women could hold over men’s heads as to who could endure the worst pain but nope, since both men and women can have kidney stones, that ship sailed.

This was the diagnosis after a urine sample, CT scan, and blood work. Then later, X-rays, and an ultrasound. So now what? I was told to follow up with a urologist, who then advised me to try and pass it, catch it (is this a sport now?!) so they could analyze it. By doing so they may be able to determine if I need to change my diet to prevent stones from developing again. They may be able to. It’s not definitive what caused my stone to form, and there’s no real way for anyone who hasn’t had them to keep them from ever forming. Sorry.

Ugh, as if I haven’t already changed my diet to as healthy as it’s ever been because I’m definitely not getting any younger. I was told to “monitor my urine” and just wait for it to pass. Apparently kidney stones could take 6-8 weeks to do so.

“Well, what exactly am I looking for? How do I know if I’ll see it?”

“Your stone is the size of a grain of sand.”

BASKET OF OBSCENITIES. I’m looking for what?! Since October 16, I HAVE been monitoring my pee (I’ll spare you the details. Use your imagination, I don’t care) and haven’t seen anything that looks like a kidney stone to me. After five weeks of feeling and seeing nothing, and thankfully not experiencing pain when I pee or anything else, I thought, ok I must have passed it and just didn’t catch it. Oh well, moving on, right?

Nope. Because I felt pain last week around Thanksgiving, it’s back to the drawing board. I need to get another ultrasound to see where the hell this stone is. How does one go about charging rent to a kidney stone? I’m not about to name it either, I’m not trying to give it a life. It’s cost me so much time and money, and what appears to now feel like an overactive bladder, I kind of wish it were bigger just so I could have it surgically removed.

So that’s where I’m at in life right now. Living with a damn kidney stone. I’m hoping in three weeks after my next ultrasound that I’ll be happy to report I’m stone-free. Fingers crossed, because I want my life back. Tired of peeing into a cup – YES I SAID IT.

Have you ever had kidney stones? Commiserate with me.

 

 

 

Note: If you do have kidney stones for the first time, try my coping mechanism: breathe, drink water, and take an Aleve. Sadly, when you have kidney stones, there’s nothing anyone can do for you except try and comfort you until the pain subsides. It ain’t pretty, but I’m here for you.