Still learning through the pain...

Tuesday morning I woke up too early because Max's nurse's head was in one of her cluster migraines. She power through for the most part, but when he stays up all night trying to party she just can work her full shift.

So I got up and started making his food. The smell of any food in the morning is nauseating to me. Let alone the blending of fruit, milk and meat. As the blenders were at full speed, I started to get a headache that was dull, but starting to feel worse My stomach started cramping and I thought, well....okay, I guess I could be sick with a stomach bug. Then the dry heaves started. By the time I finished with all those three symptoms, I was doubled over in pain on the floor crying and screaming for help.

I got my phone and texted Steve to see if he had wifi on his laptop on the airplane he was on somewhere in California. Once he answered, we were able to coordinate Abbey getting home quickly from school and my friend Susan taking me to the ER.

Once we got to the hospital, my sister, Ang met us there and Steve had landed and was on the next turn around flight to get home to me too. After ultrsounds, IV medicines and a CT scan, they pointed out I had a kidney stone, a 5mm kidney stone.

I went home cozy and dopy from all the medicine and slept pretty hard until about 3:00am...when I woke up again with incredible pain. I got Steve up to go back to hospital. This time the nausea wasn't playing around and I emptied everything I'd eaten for a week as soon as we got in there.

Again they gave me pain meds and watched me for a few hours and sent me home on more oral meds.

Today, the pain medicine just barely stayed ahead of it. Never controlled it, and by 6:00pm with every heavy duty drug they had prescribed inside my innards I couldn't take it anymore and went back to the hospital.

Seems that 3rd time is a charm. I had to go back up to hospital this evening because the pain was just unbearable. They triaged me to determine if I was just a junky looking for more drugs since I'd been in so many times in 36 hours, but figured the load moaning, groaning and wining in the lobby was worth it enough to take me to a room. They got the IV started and went down the lines of all the did the past two times.

I got hooked up to the monitors and was having a hard time catching my breath because the pain was so sharp. The Dude-bro nurse who was pumped up on far too many power drinks told me if it starts beeping to just breathe deeper. I was breathing as much as I could and it started going off. He stuck his head in the door and said, you're not breathing, breathe deeper, take a big deep breath. I started to tell him it hurts to take big deep breaths and he was still out the door. That's when I got loud and said "Are you even listening to me? I said it hurts to breathe deeply"...he popped his head back in and started talking on top of me and said See, breathe, just take a deeper breath, there you did it and now the alarm is off." I was pretty well fit to be tied at this point.

The thoughts going through my exhausted, in pain head were everything from I'm going to throw something at him, to why did he have to be so rude? He has no idea what is going on in my life. I went with the second that and realized I don't know what is going on in his life that he has to yell at a patient he just met with severe abdominal pain and shortness of breath. And then I called his supervisor who promptly took him off my case. Schmuck...i don't play around .....ESPECIALLY on a ton of drugs.

I was so worked up they had to give me more medicine to bring my heart rate down and I wouldn't throw up from the crying. Once I started to calm, naturally I had to go to the bathroom, whereby I caught a hand full of wee that's supposed to fit inside a little cup...and Kenneth, the kidney stone.

The pain continues to subside, I have an appetite for the first time in three days, and rude nurse lives to see another day. Although, I may be trying out a different hospital next time something like this comes up.

The pain is almost gone, but I think I'll be sleeping very hard tonight. And then jump right back in to the work with Santa's Little hackers! It is getting so near!!!

These past couple days have certainly made me think of mom a lot. She lived so much of her life with kidney stones. I've counted myself so fortunate to not have had them. How did she get up out of her bed and function working 3 jobs at a time with something that put me out flat? No other explanation than she was from another world. And I still learn lessons from her in every part of my life - the good, bad and painful.