We had a great time seeing Gibby, but the evening of Sunday Allison started feeling some pain in her back. I’m pretty sure that she knew what was coming since she’d felt it before, but she was in denial. She was in such pain all night that she couldn’t sleep. She was hurting so badly that around 6:30 Monday morning she threw up.
After we got the boys to school we headed off to the Urgent Care about 10 minutes down the road. We walked in and told them the issue and they said it would be about an hour. An hour? That doesn’t sound like very urgent care to me. We decided that the emergency room across the street was probably a better bet.
We filled out a couple of forms and headed right to the back. Allie got some morphine which got rid of the pain, but made her feel weird, which she didn’t like at all. Then they sent her off for a CT scan. Sure enough she had a kidney stone. The doctor made us an appointment for the next day with a urologist, gave us some prescriptions and got us on our way. I’d recommend that place to anyone. The care was great and the visit was quick and efficient.
The next day we went to the urologist where Allie got an x-ray that confirmed that she had a big one … 8mm x 11mm. We got an appointment for a lipotripsy for Friday. Yes, Friday. Allie would have to live on pain killers and anti-nausea pills for three days until the procedure could be done. They actually wanted us to wait until the following Monday since that’s when this urologist would be available, but we were supposed to be headed out of town, so some calls were made and we were able to get Friday. Apparently a kidney stone isn’t an emergency type situation.
Gibby came down Thursday night to watch the kids. We got to the hospital Friday afternoon expecting that we’d get the stone blasted and then we’d be able to hit the road and get halfway to Florida that evening. Once again, the staff and the care were out of this world. We were even ahead of schedule. They got Allie’s IV in and carted her off to the machine.
About twenty minutes later the doctor comes to see me … the doctor that’s supposed to be doing the procedure. This can’t be good. After reassuring me repeatedly that Allison was ok he informed me that the machine had broken. The machine … was … broken. He said we had several options at this point and said that Allison and I should talk it out and decide what to do. It didn’t take long for us to decide that the best option would be to get it out as soon as possible … which meant that evening.
So, we talked to the doctor. We talked to the nurse. We talked to the anesthesiologist, and they carted Allie off to the operating room while I headed to the waiting room. At that point it was all routine. They used a little camera and a little laser to break the thing up and pull it out. Allie came out of the anesthetic very sleepy and very confused, but feeling much better. We picked up new drugs, headed home, let everyone know she was ok, and headed off to bed.
We ended up leaving the house about 1:30pm expecting to get home around dinner time. We ended up getting back about 9:30pm. Things didn’t go as expected but went well regardless. Allison is now kidney stone free.