The last 30 hours or so I’ve been having another of my periodic kidney stone episodes. It started just as I was getting ready to leave work Tuesday then got worse over the next few hours. I was pretty miserable overnight, even after I took some pain killers I still had from last time. The pain killers did let me sleep a little bit. Not continuously, but for an hour or so at a time sometimes. By morning I’d passed a few small stones (at least 3, maybe more).
I’d hoped to go to work Wednesday, but in the morning I was better but not great. So I planned to just come in for my first meeting a few hours later. When that time came I got dressed and showered, but then as I was about to head out the door I started getting faint and nauseous . So I reluctantly rescheduled the meeting and then just crashed.
Aside from a quick trip to the Doctor (Brandy made me go) I have basically been asleep off and on ever since. The Doctor gave me more pain killers and a bunch of antibiotics to fight off the infection, etc. I think (hope) I’m done passing stones for now, but I’ve been running a 102 fever from the associated infection.
Fun.
About 30 minutes ago I took a second pain killer (Oxy) and so at this very instant I’m feeling better than I have since I left work yesterday. Things are still uncomfortable, but the pain killers have me in a happy place anyway and I feel semi-functional. Still wouldn’t want to ger all that far away from the bathroom though.
The doctor is starting me (once again) on a series of tests and is reffering me to a specialist. I started down this road in Pennsylvania, then again in Florida, but each time I’ve ended up moving before it got anywhere. Basically, someone my age having regular (a couple times a year) kidney stones and UTIs is very rare and unusual even taking into account my non-ideal diet, general state of health, etc.
In Florida I got further down the investigative path than ever before. I went from the Primary Care doctor who just had the usual “take pain killers and antibiotics and suffer through it” to a urologist who ran a whole bunch of tests and basically determined that he could not tell why I was developing so many of these and so he reffered me to a kidney specialist who wanted to start a whole new round of detailed tests to try to find just what was wrong with my kidneys, and therefor how to treat it. But then the doctor died and then I moved. So we got no more information there.
So once again I start the cycle. I’ll go to the urologist in a few weeks. They will do a bunch of tests. Maybe they will find something new. If not, they’ll send me to a kidney specialist and then I’ll do a lot more tests. Hopefully then they will find a cause.
So far none of these kidney stone episodes have been VERY bad. Some pain killers, some antibiotics, and a couple days of rest, and it is over. I haven’t needed the ultrasound treatments or surgery. But… the fact that since the first episode in 1995 this has gone from being a one time thing, to once every couple years, to once every three or four months… with additional related UTIs in between… is troubling. It *would* be nice to know what the underlying cause is so that I might be able to start doing things to make it happen less often.
Sigh. Oh well. The pain killer is working quite nicely at the moment though. I almost feel normal. Or at least I don’t care. Of course I am also quite loopy at the moment and shouldn’t drive and such. Hopefully by morning I’ll be in good shape to go to work. I don’t like missing work. I don’t like being sick.
Brandy says I shouldn’t go to work unless my fever drops below 100 and I don’t have to run to the bathroom every few minutes. Spoilsport! :-)
