Modern Medicine

What a mess. It's Monday night and my kidney is "calling my name" if you get my drift! I was in pain. I couldn't take it anymore. I thought, "Oh no, not another kidney stone." So, I went rushing off to the ER department. When I get there, the nurse said it could be an hour wait. I thought, "Well, I've been here this long, I can wait in pain at least another hour." However, for some odd reason, a bed became available in ten minutes. I was asked the obvious. Where does it hurt? On a scale of one to ten what is the pain? Yada Yada. It was a ten! I will not use expletives but sure would have loved to.

So, as usual they had a hard time finding a vein in which to inject the I.V. So, as the blood drips from my forearm, they finally find a "suitable" vein. I am given a schedule two med to ease the pain and they escorted me off to the CT-Room. I come back. Wait. And, wait. Did I say wait? I was told that I had a 7mm (about a 1/4 of an inch) stone in my kidney. Oh great. So, I get admitted.

After I'm secure in my room and they start the saline drip and set up my morphine pump, I'm in for the night. I will await for the urologist to come the next day to determine what route we are going to take. The only upside to this whole debacle is that I got a good night's sleep in a single room with no other person, and the morphine pump provided relief beyond belief.

The next day, I'll have to wait until after noon until the doctor sees me. Now, I forgot to mention that the doctor had instructions of "npo" which means nothing to eat or drink. I have worked in a pharmacy and if you every see "po" on your script it means "by mouth." So, hence, npo was Nothing by mouth. However they did give me cute little orange flavored swabs and a cup of water to swish my mouth with if it became dry. Then, they relented and finally gave me ice-chips to suck on.

The doctor finally arrives. Get this! His visit lasted all of two minutes. He said, "Randy, you do not have a stone. You have some inflammation, go home take some Ibuprofen." He walked out the door! That was it. Then later I found out on my discharge papers that he wrote a script for an anti-biotic because I have a level three (a higher level) of a urinary tract infection. Something the doc didn't even mention to me at all! I was released. So, I'm still in pain until the meds do their work. If I needed a day off I would have preferred the Holiday Inn but I doubt they would have provided me with those cute orange flavored swabs and morphine!

The good news in all of this: I don't have a stone according to them. If that's true, I'm thankful. (However, I must add that this isn't conclusive as of today. I have to leave myself an "out" on medical conditions.) I've been there before and it's not a walk in the park. They had to do what they call "blasting" to get the thing out of there. I'm thankful for modern medicine and I guess it was better "safe than sorry" that I was admitted to be on the sure side. Now, the funny part. I've been waiting for "Lost" to come on for some time. This shows how fickle we all can be.I thought, "I hope I'm out of the hospital before 'Lost' comes on!" Ha. Priorities. My lesson to self: Drink more water Randy...it's your friend. By the way, my friend Joel had a similar experience. Check it out.