This One Time, He Had Kidney Stones

Almost two weeks ago now, on my first day back to work after winter closure, my husband dramatically flung himself to the floor and insisted he was having a back spasm.  The Hubs is a joker, so I stepped over him and went about my business.  He eventually peeled himself off the floor and took me to work.

The following evening, he woke and said the pain was really bothering him.  He even said the established safe word so I would know he was serious.  So, I told him we would call the chiropractor and lets pray he didn’t slip a disk or something awful like that.

However, he woke up mid-week and said it was gone. So we moved on with our happy little lives, he worked his final day at Wal Mart, and the weekend came! His first Saturday off work and we could actually spend some time together! We thought it would be so great, but it was taken over by the pain in his back once more.  This time he decided that even if the pain went away before we could get in, we would go to the chiropractor Monday morning.

I went to work; you see I thought he was going in for a simple adjustment and classes started that day. I was certain he was just out of whack. What I didn’t know was after I left the house the pain intensified so much he became violently ill. He went to chiropractor anyway, and once there, after an adjustment and more vomiting because of pain, the chiropractor started feeling his abdomen and told him he needed to go to the ER immediately.

The Hubs called me and I left work in a hurry and raced to the ER with him. Unfortunately a cardiac patient came into the ER after us but received his service before us. It wasn’t until Doug was actively getting ill in the ER that the nurse finally came and took us in.  A million dollars, one CT scan, a urine sample and a blood sample later (okay, maybe not a million, but a lot) they determined that The Hubs had two kidney stones, one in the tube between the kidney and bladder on the right and one still in the kidney on the left, both which they approximated being 5-6 mm big.

They sent us home with lots of meds and a strainer and said good luck; we want you to pass it.

After two days of more violently ill episodes, we decided we weren’t waiting for little baby kidney stone to make its entrance. There had to be a better option. So we went to the urologist clinic where, upon looking at more scans, the Doctor determined that an ureteroscopy was our only option due to the location of the stone. So we scheduled a surgery for the next day.

Long story short, the kidney stone was packed very, very tightly in the tube right next to the major vessels that lead to the leg.  The doc said it was one of the tightest packed ones he has seen. So they laser blasted it into smaller pieces and put a stent in the tube so The Hubs can pass it.  He still has to pass the pieces and then in two weeks we have to go back so that they can remove the stent on the right side and go after the kidney stone on the left.

I discovered a few things in this process. Number one, my husband’s response to anesthesia is to swear, A LOT.  Number two, kidney stones are so painful my husband said he wouldn’t even wish them on his worst enemy. Number three, I hate being the person sitting in the waiting room “waiting” for news on the person having surgery done.

So he is resting. He is sleeping. He is in a lot of pain.  He is hilarious on his meds.  I would post a video but like I said, he swears.  He missed his entire first week of classes and this semester looks like it is not off to the best start we could have hoped for, but we have each other and soon we will once again have our health.

Even if it does cost a million dollars....or thousands....or whatever.