In a Word: Oww

So I'm home again. After just three days of classes, I had to come home for a Thursday morning kidney stone removal surgery, or as I'm calling it, a Blockage Removal Operation (B.R.O.)

I woke up Thursday morning, writhing in pain and audibly groaning. Apparently, this monster couldn't wait a few more hours and decided to force its way out of my kidney on its own. My surgery wasn't scheduled until 11:30, but my mother and I went in a little early, in search of effective pain management. Marcia, my nurse, quickly took me back and hooked up my I.V. Marcia was a lifesaver on Thursday. She even gave me a quick pinch of lydicane (sp?) in my forearm so that the I.V. wouldn't hurt so much.

After waiting there for only about two hours, it was time for the surgery, and I was taken back to the operating room. There isn't a lot that I remember specifically from yesterday. Most of it is vague and foggy. I woke up from the surgery in pain that was just as bad, if not worse, than the pain I had when I went in, which didn't make a lot of sense to me. As it turns out, the dye that the doctor shot up to confirm the location of the stone actually pushed the stone back up into my kidney, making removal impossible. So the scope was pulled out and the surgery was brought to an unsuccessful halt. The stone, by the way, is roughly an inch in diameter.

Apparently, though, his scope clipped my ureter and a blood clot formed and blocked my kidney, effectively becoming a stone. But as I said, the pain didn't make sense without knowledge of the clot. So the nursing staff had to run a series of tests which took about an hour to come to the conclusion that something was indeed blocking my kidney. The same conclusion that my mother and I reached within seconds of my waking up in pain. It is getting old having to prove to doctors that we know what we're talking about.

So I went back into surgery. When I came to, I was told that the blockage was removed, and a stent was put in place. The do-it-yourself stent. Yes, that is the part of the planned surgery that went according to plan. It was put in place to prevent the stone from trying to pass again and to aid any debris in its attempt to pass.

I went in to have a stone removed and a DIY stent put in place. The stone was not removed, but the stent was still put in place. It is set for removal on Wednesday, unless it is bothering me too much, in which case it will be removed on Tuesday. Yes, I have to remove it myself. I still don't believe it. And I don't quite understand what they were thinking when they cut the line. There is, obviously, a piece of string attached to the stent leading out for me to grasp and pull. When I imagined this, I cringed, and I imagined the line to be about a foot long so that I had plenty of slack, could get a good grip, and could tape it to my thigh to avoid it being tugged on throughout the day, because they told me it would be taped to my thigh.

The doctor, however, had a different idea and decided a four inch line would do the trick. When I woke up, it was taped pretty high up on my thigh as well, providing me with some much-needed (cough) tugging with every move I made. Even with a new tape-job, relief was hard to find. Now I'm trying the no-tape route because tugging is not what I need.

I know what you're thinking: What about that monster stone in your kidney? Well, I'm glad you asked. It has to wait until June because it is not a surgery that I will be able to squeeze into a long weekend and be ready for Monday morning calculus. I will be admitted to the hospital, they will put a tube into my kidney through my back, leave it be for a day (I still don't know why), and then they will go in after it. This will add half an inch to my scar total, which I was kind of hoping would be complete after the second nick on my left upper arm from my second PICC line.

So, yea ... not exactly what I was hoping for when the surgery was scheduled last weekend. So there it is. Suck it up through the pain and burning that comes with each urination until Tuesday or Wednesday, and then bite the bullet and pull. Perhaps there will be a video of the removal (Don't worry, nothing below the neck). It will be PG-13 at the very worst.

Until next time ... -IW